Story and Recipes by Jay Ducote | Food and Cooking Photography by Collin Richie
When I lived in my own little tailgating bubble, it never really occurred to me that what I did—the parties I helped throw, the memories I made—were the envy of the sporting world. I tailgated because my cousin Travis taught me to tailgate as a freshman. I tailgated because it just felt right, getting to campus at dawn and setting up a party for friends, family, random acquaintances, and even our opponent’s fans. I didn’t realize back in the early 2000s, as I attended Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge, that our tailgate parties and the culture we brought to campus would go on to define my passions, my career, and my life.
I always knew it represented something bigger. My party, Third Row Tailgaters, set up on the front steps of the Natatorium, down Nicholson Drive past the track stadium and the fieldhouse. Every Saturday in the fall, the party raged on that grassy field surrounded by crape myrtles and live oaks. On occasion in those early days, as I had my own party to throw, I’d get to walk around campus and witness the sea of humanity clad in purple and gold spread all over the picturesque campus. The party I threw represented just a tiny sliver of the festivities that surrounded me. This scene—with the bubbling cauldrons of gumbo, the coolers full of endless beer, the smells of burning charcoal and spilled bourbon—felt like home to me while being a marvel to others who flocked from afar to witness it.
Our party grew significantly throughout my time in undergrad and grad school. By the time I earned a master’s degree in political science in 2007, we had built a tailgating empire. However, as our core crew graduated, moved out of town, or otherwise started a new chapter in their own lives, we found it difficult to continue at the pace we once operated on. LSU won another national championship that season, and we didn’t know it, but it would be our final season of regular tailgate parties. By 2008, we had decided to throw in the towel on Third Row. However, while my party-throwing days were done, the next chapter of my tailgating saga was just beginning.
Free to migrate campus on game days, I found pleasure in experiencing other people’s tailgate parties for a change. Ford Family Tailgating, hosted by Sharon and Charlie Ford, parents of one of my college roommates, Collin Ford, welcomed me and multiple of my Third Row brethren with open arms. With other connections still at LSU and a burgeoning food blog, I soon became a tailgating figure of sorts, working with the athletic department to host “Tailgater of the Game” videos that aired on the jumbotrons in the stadium during the game. Each week, I’d get picked up by a golf cart and we’d drive around campus to find a group of worthy tailgaters. We’d film a quick little video segment with food and interviews and then I’d get taken back to Ford Family and continue tailgating for the rest of the day. In 2010, I won the Tony Chachere’s Tailgating Cookoff, a victory that helped launch my culinary career, and soon after that, I found myself cooking for Gordon Ramsay on MasterChef.
Before LSU’s trip to Ole Miss in 2013, writer Brett Martin reached out to me, asking if I knew anybody who would be tailgating in Oxford. He said he’d be writing a tailgate article for Bon Appétit and needed a tailgater from each team to shadow for the day. Not wanting to pass up that opportunity, I told him I’d be there (though prior to that, I had no intentions of going), and I took my tailgating setup complete with a barbecue pit made of kegs and my trusty 15-gallon cast-iron cauldron to the edge of The Grove. The article, “Any Given Saturday: This Is How You Tailgate in the American South,” came out in the fall of 2014.
As my own career grew and national TV fame came along, I made sure to remember my roots: learning how to cook at tailgate parties. On the first episode of season 11 of Food Network Star in 2015, I put my tailgate skills on display making a corn maque choux with grilled shrimp on an outdoor grill and made several references to tailgating at LSU. By the end of that summer, I had finished runner-up on the show and felt like quite the celebrity walking around campus that fall. After a pilot for a show I hosted called Deep Fried America aired on Travel Channel in 2016, LSU invited me to give a commencement speech in 2017, where I told the graduates that despite my degrees in economics and political science, I really majored in tailgating. Then I invited all the graduates and their families to join me for a barbecue in Tiger Stadium after the ceremony.
In 2018, I reached the pinnacle of my LSU tailgating career. The capital city’s tourism board, Visit Baton Rouge, hosted a food writer from VICE, Naomi Tomky, to write about her experience for the LSU vs. Alabama game. They asked if Naomi could follow me around for the day, joining me at different tailgate parties and anything else on campus that I wanted to show her, such as the iconic Golden Band from Tigerland marching down the hill to the stadium, and, of course, the game itself. As the weekend approached, ESPN’s College GameDay announced that they’d be live from the LSU Quad that weekend, and I got tasked with being the featured chef. In the middle of the television broadcast, I brought a spread of Louisiana seafood to the hosts of the show for their food segment. I had Naomi in tow for all of it, so after filming GameDay, I proceeded to parade her around campus for the rest of the day. Her article, “I Spent 12 Hours Eating Everything at a LSU Tailgate,” captured the entire ordeal.
I thought life couldn’t get any better for a tailgater, but in 2019, ESPN College GameDay called again, this time for the LSU vs. Florida game. In the middle of another national championship run, I spent the morning doing segments for Good Morning America and various ESPN programs. Live on College GameDay, legendary actor John Goodman, who served as the guest picker later that morning, joined me as I roasted a whole alligator on a spit above an open fire.
LSU tailgating has given me some of my best friends, most outrageous memories, and greatest highlights of my career. I learned how to cook on campus, brought tailgating to national TV, cooked on some of the biggest stages, got paid to cater huge parties for clients like Tostitos, and so much more. I’m not sure what tailgate experiences lie ahead for me, but I’ll always be ready to put on my purple and gold and head to campus!
