LETTER: Tailgating is about fun, not rules
I understand that everyone does not tailgates the same. Not everyone does everything the same.
Some people tailgate with a hot dog and some friendly conversation. Some tailgate with a lot of alcohol and the hopeful possibility of meeting new people. The point of this message, and of all protest against these rules, is to fight for the rights of the students and attendees that make football the number one income of public universities!
I understand that tailgate has different connotations for everyone. But just because tailgating means different things, people don’t have to be enemies or opposites. As I look at it, this is just like freedom of religion (but not equal, nobody pounce on me for that comparison).
Students should be able to tailgate in a manner that they see fit, within reason, of course.
The university takes adequate precautions to make us all safe. I hope that if you saw a fellow tailgater in trouble, you would help them out. Tailgate brings us all together as Chippewas, young and old, men and women.
I will refute these new rules because I believe them to be unnecessary regulations that hinder our abilities to live our lives as the four fathers intended, with the freedom to make choices that follow our own morals and feelings.
Make no mistake, I respect all tailgate styles and all tailgaters. I have been the drunk at the end of the truck looking for a ride out of the student lot. I have been a respectable member of the marching band, just wishing that, for once, the students would quiet down enough to hear us play the fight song for them.
But in no way, shape, or form have I ever let tailgate get in the way of what I really wake up on game-day to do — support CMU athletics.
Whether I am drunk or sober, you best believe that I walk through those gates and get counted as a CMU fan who holds the game-day atmosphere sacred and wish that the university would see it as such as well.
Nobody is looking for a verbal debate here. We are looking for the freedom to express ourselves as fans equally.
Whether that be with a hot dog in hand and a win on our mind, or with a 30-pack driven into us and dreams of a third MAC championship floating through our heads, we all think the same thing on game day.
Chris Mueller Grandville senior
