9 Things South Carolinians Do at a Tailgate That Baffle Newcomers

A parking spot at a Clemson tailgate measures exactly nine feet wide by twenty-three feet long, marked in white paint, and donors fight over which nine by twenty-three they get.

That’s official policy.

Donors rank by seniority for which spot they get, and the wait list outlasts some marriages.

These are the tailgate rules and rituals that make South Carolina football look like nothing else in the country.

1. Renting a Retired Train Car

Behind Williams-Brice Stadium, an old railroad spur holds twenty-two real train cabooses lined up end to end, and Gamecock fans call the row the Cockaboose Railroad.

Each caboose works as a private tailgate suite, with a kitchen, a bathroom, and a rooftop deck for watching the crowd roll in.

When the cabooses first went up for sale in 1990, buyers snapped up twenty of the twenty-two within 48 hours, for about $45,000 apiece.

They rarely sell now.

When a caboose does sell, it can bring well into six figures, and newcomers assume the whole idea is a joke until they see the waiting list.

2. Fighting Over Nine by Twenty-Three

A Clemson tailgate spot isn’t first come, first served.

Fans earn their exact spot through IPTAY, Clemson’s donor club that ranks members by how much they’ve given the athletic department over the years.

Every marked space runs nine by twenty-three feet, painted right onto the pavement, and donors track their assigned space the way homeowners track a mortgage.

IPTAY’s own parking rules run for pages, right down to which direction a camper backs into its spot.

Skip that detail, and staff turn the camper away at the gate.

Lots open at 6 a.m. for an early kickoff and 8 a.m. for anything later, and IPTAY members get first pick of both windows.

Every inch counts.

3. Lining up for the Tiger Walk

Two hours before kickoff, Clemson fans abandon their grills and coolers to crowd the edges of the P-3 parking lot.

They’re waiting on the Tiger Walk, the 200-yard walk players and coaches take from the buses to Memorial Stadium.

Coach Dabo Swinney’s staff built the tradition into a full pregame ritual not long after he took the job in 2008, and it’s grown every season since.

Kids reach over the ropes for high fives.

Parents hoist toddlers onto their shoulders for a better look.

Fans put the coolers on hold until it passes.

4. Timing the Grill to “2001”

South Carolina tailgaters don’t wander into Williams-Brice Stadium whenever they feel like it.

They watch the clock because missing the Gamecocks’ entrance is its own kind of tailgate sin.

The team runs onto the field to the theme from 2001: A Space Odyssey, a tradition running since 1981.

Quarterback Tommy Suggs borrowed the idea after watching Elvis Presley walk onstage to the same music.

Sporting News has ranked it the most exciting entrance in college football.

Fans who linger too long at the cooler miss it entirely.

Nobody wants that.

5. Simmering a Pot of Chicken Bog

Somewhere in the tailgate lot, a folding table holds a stockpot of chicken bog, simmering since sunrise.

The dish mixes chicken, smoked sausage, and rice into one pot, a specialty of South Carolina’s Pee Dee region.

The dish predates the Civil War, and cooks in the Pee Dee’s rice country first ladled it out of pits along the region’s rivers.

The town of Loris runs a chicken bog cooking contest every year, the Bog-Off Festival.

Every family swears its own version is the original.

Nobody ever settles that argument.

Everyone just reheats it.

6. Ladling Hash Over Rice

Grab a Styrofoam bowl at a Midlands tailgate, and it's probably hash, not gravy.

Hash is a thick, pork-based stew simmered for hours and ladled over white rice, and South Carolina claims it as a barbecue side found almost nowhere else.

Recipes vary by region: The Midlands favor mustard, the Lowcountry leans vinegar, and the Upstate uses beef and onion instead of pork.

Newcomers expect chili.

They get something else entirely.

7. Cracking Open Blenheim Ginger Ale

Many tailgaters tuck at least one bottle of Blenheim Ginger Ale into their cooler.

The hot, spiced soda has been bottled in the state since 1903, first drawn from a mineral spring discovered in 1781.

Production moved to Hamer in 1993, right next to the South of the Border tourist stop off I-95.

Their eyes water on the first sip, and nobody warns them beforehand.

Their eyes water instead.

8. Boiling the Official State Snack

Right next to the hash pot, another pot holds boiled peanuts, salted and simmering for an hour or more.

South Carolina's legislature made them official in 2006, naming boiled peanuts the state's snack food by law.

It's the law.

Roadside stands sell them by the bag from spring through fall.

At a tailgate, they're free for the taking, passed hand to hand out of the pot.

Shells pile up under the folding chairs by kickoff.

9. Toasting at the Esso Club

Some tailgates don't end in the parking lot at all.

Fans wrap up the day, win or lose, at the Esso Club, a converted gas station pouring beer near Memorial Stadium since 1933.

The main bar is topped with cedar seating pulled from Death Valley's original bleachers.

A handful of famous alumni have their own name plates fixed to that same bar, a permanent seat even when they can't make the game.

Regulars line up three deep before kickoff and stay well past the final whistle.