With more concrete than grass in tailgating areas, it’s a little trickier to set up a tent or haul in an RV in New Orleans than in Tuscaloosa. Still, fans of both Alabama and LSU could be found grilling out before Monday’s national championship game.
LSU fans were in full force at area tailgates. RV parks scattered throughout a mile radius of the Superdome sported much purple and gold, with many featuring live music.
Thomas LeBlanc, an LSU fan and resident of New Iberia, La., first began tailgating in New Orleans when the Tigers claimed their second national championship in 2004. He got another lot for the 2007 Sugar Bowl against Notre Dame and the 2008 national championship against Ohio State.
LeBlanc’s tailgate this year, located in a parking lot on St. Charles Avenue, featured 20 different tailgating groups and ran from Saturday to Monday.
“Everybody pitches in,” he said. “We’re cooking so many different things that if it eats grass or swims in the water, we’re cooking it. It’s like a smorgasbord of South Louisiana food.”
The menu for championship weekend included oysters, fried frog legs, jambalaya and lamb lollipops. “Everybody’s proud of what they’ve got,” he said. “We just grill every kind of meat you can think about.”
For the 2008 championship game, LeBlanc estimates that his group of tailgaters fed more than 1,000 people. “The thing was so crowded, it was like Mardi Gras down Bourbon Street,” he said. “You couldn’t hardly walk down it.”
This year, LeBlanc sold wristbands for entry to the tailgate to help fund the large amount of food. However, he said that he welcomes all, including Alabama fans.
“They will come, and we will feed them. We do that with all the games. We even feed the homeless when they come by.”
While LeBlanc’s was one of many prominent LSU tailgates downtown, it was harder to find Alabama fans grilling out. A rare crimson tent could be seen here and there in mostly purple and gold lots. Still, east of the Superdome on Canal Street, a few dozen Tide fans had gathered for a tailgate.
Tony Parton, a Bama fan who has been a Tide Pride member since the group’s inception, spent days talking to New Orleans parking lot owners, trying to find a space that was both affordable and close to the action for him and his family.
“There are several of us that are in Tide Pride that don’t have enough points to get the tickets, and some of our friends and wives and relatives did,” he said the morning of the game. “We came knowing we wouldn’t get in the game, but we’re going to tailgate and have the best time we can.”
Parson said cost and a lack of knowledge of the area probably kept many Tide fans from setting up on prime downtown real estate. He said there were several larger Alabama tailgates a few miles further from the Superdome.
Kenny Martin, Parson’s brother-in-law, said he enjoyed having the tailgate so close to the stadium. Martin, who attended the championship, was also present for the 1992 Sugar Bowl in New Orleans, when Alabama claimed its 12th national championship. “That was an awesome experience. We spent the entire time down here. Nobody except Alabama fans thought we were going to win. They just trash talked us. It was terrible. We went in that stadium to take care of business. This weekend, it seems a little bit the same to me. I don’t think anybody other than us Alabama fans think we’re going to win tonight.”
With any Tide tailgates sticking out like a sore thumb, Martin and Parsons said they’d had their fair share of interactions with LSU fans.
“It’s been about what I expected,” Martin said. “Most of the time, if you throw it right back at them, they’ll just smile and go on.”
Martin said the tailgating experience on Canal was very different from Tuscaloosa. “Down there [in Tuscaloosa], we’re surrounded by a bunch of friends we’ve kept around each weekend,” he said. “This is a little more isolated, but we’ve got a great group of friends.”
