By: Skell Eaton

BLOOMINGTON, IN — Leading up to the kickoff of Indiana University’s match-up against Nebraska, thousands of Indiana students made their traditional pilgrimage away from the stadium after their tailgate parties, directly preceding the football game.

“This is by far my favorite IU tradition. There’s nothing like marching side by side away from the stadium with other fantastic students as our team is about to take the field,” slurred Charlie Burns, stumbling down the sidewalk.

Sources report that this convention started in 1869, only months after the first college football game was played and at the height of the beer industry’s expansion. Since then, the drunken saunter from the tailgating fields back to the dormitories has skyrocketed in popularity. Tailgating, a tradition in and of itself, is popular among students because it’s an easy excuse to start drinking at 10:00 AM on a Saturday. Reports confirm that stressed upperclassmen often start their drinking the night before.

“It doesn’t make sense to sleep on Friday after a night out if I’m just going to get up seven hours later and start drinking,” senior economics major Max Campbell explained. “I’d rather skip the sleep altogether and just drink through the night. I burn all the calories off during the walk back from the tailgate, anyway.”

At press time, the stampede of students was reportedly staggering away from the stadium at kickoff, slurring the lyrics to “This is Indiana” in unison, off-key and 15 beats per minute slower than the original composer intended.

“These parades are are by far the best reason to come to IU,” Campbell claimed, pissing into an open McNutt ground level window.

 

Photo credit: Matthew Conroy, www.twentysomethingindy.com