Tales of TJM Tailgaters!

Since football season is well under way, and we’re 30 miles south of the University of Florida, we asked our staff about their tailgating preferences. Surprisingly, there  weren’t a whole lot of tailgaters among us. Here’s what the few, the proud, the fans, said:

Justin MacDonald

My oldest son is a freshman playing JV football for (Ocala) Forest High School (and just got his first high school touchdown last week!), so I don’t do much tailgating for that, but I do enjoy taking pictures of him and his teammates while I’m there!

Otherwise, with my schedule and inability to sit still (and two favorite teams that are not doing so hot right now: UF and Dallas Cowboys), I don’t really spend a ton of time watching football on the weekends during regular season.  Maybe about two hours tops.

I’ve never really been a huge tailgating person, but if I chose my favorite moments tailgating it would be:

Baltimore with my son, before a Ravens game, his favorite team.  They had food trucks and a big band that plays, which was a lot of fun.

And

We did a celebration of life for my cousin with a bunch of the guys in our family before a UF game and we really had a great time.

The biggest common denominator (besides family) was always… cornhole!  A must-have for tailgating festivities.

Shannon Moore

Tailgating hasn't been a thing for us in a while.  After college, I kind of lost interest. We'll do the cliche of watching only the Super Bowl ... yeesh. 

Matt Maio

We have a group that we tailgate and sit with at the Gator games. We used to have a spot where we had to bring a tent and set up early, but a few years ago we switched to a spot at one of the UF research facilities. It has a nice overhang to keep us in the shade and has a spot to plug in so we can set up a TV to watch the other football games while we tailgate. We have a tradition of stopping at Pearl’s Barbecue in Micanopy to pick up a rack or two of the best ribs you’ll ever have.