Family tradition grows on game days

            Walking among the sea of tailgates set up along Lindsey Street during the Saturday of an Oklahoma football game, there are some things that people just absolutely know they are going to see.

            Food ranging from hot dogs and hamburgers to salad and shrimp.  Coolers packed with enough beer and soda to drown a small town.  Televisions so large and expensive they would look as out of place as an Eskimo in Texas if it weren’t for the fact that everybody had one.

            And then, of course, there would be the Moen family.

            Most people make it out to a few games a year, deciding which games to attend based on factors like who the Sooners are playing, or whether or not they have the time to spend an entire Saturday in Norman.

            For Dan Moen and his family, even if he was overloaded at work and OU was playing the likes of lowly Northeast Montana Community College, the chances of their tailgate being set up are just as likely as those of the crowd singing the OU fight song before the game.

            “Off and on between 1965 and 2000, I’ve gone to about three or four games a year,” said Dan, who graduated from OU in 1973.  “But we’ve been to just about every game since 2000.”

            Tailgating has been a tradition in the Moen family for quite some time, and even more so since two of the three children arrived as students at OU. 

            Taylor, a sophomore business major, and Danielle, a nursing graduate student, start setting up their family’s tailgate on the Friday of each week, making it much more convenient for the rest of the family to travel to each game from their home in Dallas, TX.

            “Tailgating has been made much easier with two kids here,” Dan said.  “You get a good location, and it makes it a lot easier to get organized when you can do it on Friday afternoon instead of hustling down on game day.  So Taylor and Danielle set up on Friday and we show up on Saturday.  It’s tailgating made easy.”

            With two children attending OU, and the third Moen child—Kirby, a junior in high school—likely on the way, game days have become about family and friends just as much as they are about football.

            “We’ve been in the same spot for a few years now,” Taylor said, “so it’s grown as the years have gone on. Now a lot of people come and it becomes more of an event every week and every year.”

            Mike Vivian, one of Taylor’s close friends and likewise a sophomore business major at OU, is just one example of the many people who have contributed to the growth of the Moen’s tailgate through the years.

            “I used to go to several different tailgates,” Vivian said, “but now I just come to this one.  Taylor’s parents invite me and my family to come, and most of my friends come here too.  That’s why I like to go here.  Everybody I hang out with on game days is at the Moen’s.”

            Still, as nice as it is to spend time catching up with family and friends, everybody remembers the reason they all have this opportunity to congregate together in the first place.

            “It’s nice to have chats with one another,” said Jack Randolph, who, as Danielle’s boyfriend, has been coming to the Moen’s for the past three years.  “But tailgating is also about a bunch of passionate fans getting together before Sooner football games and getting revved up.  It’s important to get passionate, and tailgating gets you fired up for the games.”

            Whether you’re there for the conversational chatter or the fanatical football environment, the option of both is what makes the Moen’s tailgate—and OU in general—such an appealing destination.

            “I’ve been to a lot of other big football schools,” Taylor said, “and [OU] is pretty special.  It has a party atmosphere, but also a family atmosphere at the same time. I really think that adds to the quality of tailgating and of game day.”

            It’s a safe bet tailgating at OU will be around as long as the game of football still exists.  As far as the Moen’s go, Dan doesn’t see his family or his tailgate going anywhere any time soon either.

            “We’ll definitely keep doing it,” Dan said. “It’s one of those things I really enjoy doing, whether the kids are at school here or not, whether I was at school here or not—we’ve been coming for a long time.”