WASHINGTON - No one quite knew what to expect in a cold parking lot outside the McDonough Gymnasium at Georgetown last Saturday morning. The Duke men's lacrosse team was coming to town, and anticipation seeped through the air. Would it be like the Blue Zone again? Would it be all old people? Would there be alcohol at all?
The bad news, sort of, is that there were no giant panda suits, no superhero outfits, no Dean Sue walking around with bottles of water. No one dumped beer on their buddy's head, and it didn't look like anyone had to puke. My roommate and I, riding the subway in a Budweiser T-shirt and a wife-beater, were the only ones with giant aviator glasses, which we soon discarded.
The good news: It was a whole lot better than all that. And maybe some Saturday at Duke, they'll bring back good clean fun again.
Imagine a place where old friends could relax and share beer and barbecue without having to binge. Duke's myriad walls of social segregation came tumbling down. For once, we weren't in X frat or Y sorority-we were just "Duke." And alums had come from as far away as Richmond, Raleigh, even Durham, just to be there.
Having missed the on-campus football tailgates this year, I can't say if the scene has changed or not from years past. But if it's the same demolition derby as before, Duke students would do well to heed the Georgetown tailgate's most important lesson: You don't have to kill yourself to have a good time. It would be amazing to see current Duke students treat moderate drinking, rather than the extreme kind, as a rite of passage.
For once, the spirit was more Fourth of July than Halloween. People-get this-did things other than drink. There were basketball hoops set up, while some local prep school kids tossed around a lacrosse ball. "Don't go to law school," a 50-something lawyer told us while sipping on Yuengling. Like much of the older crowd there, he was wearing a "Disbar Nifong" sweatshirt.
The Duke Club of Washington had originally anticipated a mere 50 faithful showing up. Instead, they sold out of tickets three times, and about 200 came. There would have probably been more, too, if it hadn't been freezing out.
The Georgetown team walked right through the tailgate, and we booed them.
At halftime, when Duke was down two goals, most of us were still at the tailgate, chugging down six-packs and avoiding the mud. By the time we ambled over, you could just about feel the energy for the rest of the game. We tied, then we went up a goal, then two-and the game finished, with a handful of sad, soggy Georgetown fans muttering about strippers.
Tailgate in D.C. was a beautiful throwback: a pre-game that truly was pre-game. Everyone eventually came out and cheered the Duke men on-even if there were only two minutes left. No one stumbled back home to pass out for the rest of the day, as football tailgaters at Duke are wont to do. On the contrary, most of the young alums went back for more, laughing in the parking lot for another hour. Then everyone made a day of it down at the Hawk and Dove, Old Glory and the rest of the local attractions.
We've all grown up a lot in the past year, and maybe we realized something most of us never thought we'd have to say: Life is too much fun to spend incapacitated. If Duke ever comes back to town, the D.C. crowd will be there, just like last weekend.
The only thing missing was Bojangles.
Andrew Gerst, former managing editor of Towerview, graduated from Duke in 2006 and now lives and works in Washington, D.C. His column runs every other Monday.
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