Lucas Gebhart
Sports Editor
Rain or shine, tailgating is part of the cultural fabric of college football, drawing fans to brave the elements of Mother Nature to carry on a tradition that those who don’t partake in will never fully understand.
For the diehards, it doesn’t matter if there is a whiteout blizzard with a temperature below zero, when they say rain or shine, they mean rain or shine.
“We will still be here,” Jerald Kimber and PJ Weedin said in unison. “You have to support your football team.”
Mark Dahlquist, is a 20-year tailgating veteran and 1988 ISU alum, and like Kimber and Weedin, is at every ISU game regardless of what Mother Nature throws his way.
“We don’t mind the weather,” Dahlquist said. “There have been a couple of times where there has been snow and everything. We are pretty devout; we are always here.”
“We are diehards,” Weedin said.
According to Dahlquist, tailgating has not always been as good as it is today. When Dahlquist was in school, the parking lot was dead.
“There was really no life in the parking lot,” Dahlquist said. “People would just pull up to the game and go. I am really happy that the school has been doing a lot of really positive things with the Bengal Fest and everything.”
“We used to have a spot over by Bonneville Park,” Kimber said. “This has really grown. Tailgating at ISU has grown a bunch in the last five years.”
Kimber has been going to ISU games before Holt Arena was even an idea. Watching the Bengals play at Davis Field, Kimber has seen so many Bengal football games that he cannot recall the first ISU game he saw in person.
“You’re asking a 59-year old man if he remembers his first ISU game,” Kimber laughed. “I lived about two blocks from the stadium and we used to go step up on the side of Red Hill and watch the game from up there. That was our football field, we have come a long way. From a field that held, I don’t know 1,800 people, to a stadium that holds 12,000.”
Even Holt Arena’s home-opener in 1970 is a forgotten memory.
“I had to have been here,” Kimber said. “But, yep, that is too long ago.”
One game that does stick out in Kimber’s mind is The Globe of Death, one of the most famous plays in ISU history. In a 1992 home game vs. Boise State, the game was all but decided, until ISU head coach Brian McNeely went to his bag of tricks.
ISU had just given up a go-ahead touchdown to the Broncos with less than a minute to play and Boise State squib kicked the ensuing kickoff to avoid a big return. It didn’t work, all 11 ISU players formed a circle, thus coining the term The Globe of Death and Robert Johnson ended up with the football, returning it all the way to the Boise State 42-yard line. Backup quarterback Paul Putnam found Rommie Wheeler in the end zone with five second remaining, giving the Bengals a 24-20 win. The play seems like it happened yesterday for Kimber.
“Everybody remembers The Globe of Death,” Kimber said. “It made ESPN and a bunch of sports shows.”
For Kimber and Weedin, the best part about tailgating is the comradery.
“That is the best thing right there,” Weedin said. “We have good food, we have good people, we have good fun and a good game and a good team.”
“Because it is such a small [community] I know a lot of the people here,” Stephana Prokschl added. “We like an excuse to get together and hang out.”
For Dahlquist, it is more about making game day last the entire day.
“We only have about five home football games a year,” Dahlquist said. “We all really love football, so whatever you can do to stretch the day out, make it a full day activity, it is just fun. It is part of the whole experience.”
ISU football runs in Dahlquist’s, Kimber’s and Weedin’s blood. Missing a game simply is not an option because their love for Bengal football is too strong.
“We love ISU football,” Kimber said. “Grew up in Pocatello, lived here most my life, missed very few games. I am a pretty diehard fan.”
If Pocatello did not have ISU, it would be just another town.
“We are a college town,” Kimber said. “If this town didn’t have ISU, we’d be in big trouble.”
