Generations of Tailgating

When you think of your high school days, what comes to mind?

My sister Morgan and I, 2002

Maybe it’s that wonderful teacher who inspired you or passing notes in the hallway with your best friend, time spent in detention…

For many Springfieldians, if they went to Sacred Heart-Griffin High School, one word comes to mind: football.

Before I even set foot in the hallways of Sacred Heart-Griffin (SHG), I knew football was a big deal. My dad played when he was in high school and wore the occasional SHG sweatshirt or would have a game on the radio, but his level of fandom really kicked up when my sister started school.

She joined the dance team (we called them Poms) and would dance at halftime each week, so it only made sense to hang out in the parking lot of the football stadium 3 hours ahead of game time, right? Something I learned, called tailgating. Of course, as the little sister, I was always dragged along and would sulk in the car with my walkman, but the adults… man, the adults seemed like they were having a good time.

Look who’s tailgating now! My senior year, fall 2007

Fast forward a few years and I was now the big man (woman?) on campus and I totally “got it.” Yes, it absolutely made sense to hang out in a parking lot 3 hours before game time because if you were a Cyclone fan, that’s just what you did. The football team was good. Really good. The football program had a decades-long legacy that included city titles, state titles, one of the winningest coaches in Illinois (who would go on to become the winningest coach in Illinois in 2018), a few alumni who went on to play in the NFL, the MLB… You get the picture.

And with really good teams comes really dedicated fans.

Tailgating “back in the day”, Anne Dondanville, left

In the early 2000s, we shared a football stadium with several other high schools, so the tailgates were smaller but so lively at Memorial Stadium. There was such energy in those 3 hours before game time. There were always pop-up tents filled with crock-pots and coolers, open to anyone– as long as you were wearing black & gold.

Anne Dondanville, a “Football Mom,” as she called herself, was there for both the Memorial Stadium era, 2005-2008, and more recently at the SHG Stadium, 2013-2017.

The “brotherhood”, 2003

Anne says, “At Memorial, we would make sure we got there early so we could greet the bus when the team arrived on a yellow school bus! Bells rang, little kids would run to watch the players get off the bus stone-faced and focused as they ran through the gate. It’s silly but I tear up just thinking about it. It was such a brotherhood.”

Fast forward a few more years, and SHG built their own stadium, so you can imagine how those tailgates went. Anne recalled moving over to SHG Stadium, “There was a different kind of pride. We lost a little bit of the arriving gladiator feeling that we had at Memorial but what we gained was a ‘this is our house’ feeling. It was all great— there was a lot of winning in my years but there was so much more than that- there’s so much more to football! Especially SHG football. It’s just special.”

No more crockpots & pop-up tents! Chef Scott Hanken

The tailgating at SHG Stadium has hosted alumni spanning generations, a fundraiser for an opposing team whose town was decimated by a tornado the very week they were set to play, an alumni Olympian, dozens of proud moms & dads, and probably a few sulking siblings.

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