This past weekend, I had the opportunity to drive to Michigan University and visit my friend who is a sophomore and is now living in her gorgeous sorority house. 

Let me start off by saying that Michigan has a beautiful campus. Contrary to Miami, which also has a spectacular campus, the majority of the buildings at Michigan are made of stone. This gives the campus a gothic, “Hogwarts” feel that is hard to find at other campuses. 

In addition, Michigan has many streets with local restaurants and boutiques that allow the students to have multiple places to go during the weekend. More importantly, and I don’t say this to minimize Miami, Michigan has a huge football fan base. Hence the reason I went to Michigan for the weekend in the first place, to see the Miami-Michigan football game. 

Here I have to pause and state that although Miami’s team is not the best football team, the players are constantly working to improve and the team has been a lot more positive this year than it has in past years. Although the Miami football fan base is increasing, Michigan’s fans are doing it right.

I have been to Michigan to watch two different games and each time I was privileged to experience a different side of tailgating. The first time I saw a Michigan game was when I was 17. I was visiting my friend and we proceeded to wake up at 6:30am to begin collecting money for Dance Marathon from the tailgaters. So, we walked to the stadium and, to my surprise, people were already set up. At 7:30am (still blows my mind). My friend and I proceeded to make our way around the campsites and I had a fabulous time throwing footballs with graduates of Michigan and talking with all the alumni and hearing their funny stories.

That is one side of the Michigan tailgating. 

This time around, I woke up at 8:30 (still too early for my liking) and met my friend at, what everyone who goes to Michigan calls, The Pit. The Pit is a house that hosts tailgating parties for selected sororities and fraternities, but in reality everyone filters in and out. 

While there, I was shocked at the energy that all the students had so early in the morning. During the party, a part of me wished that Miami had a team that had a huge fan base to the point that students and alumni wake as early as 6:00am to tailgate. I realized that although Michigan has a great time during the football season, Miami has fun weekends in different ways.

That being said let me give you some examples. First of all is the famous Beat the Clock (Beat for short) where people can go and by a pitcher of beer for $1.00 at 1:00pm, $2.00 at 2:00pm, and so on and so forth. There have been times where I have seen videos on Youtube of Beat being packed with students watching the USA Olympic hockey games. These types of videos put a smile on my face because Miami students can still have a blast without cheering for the Redhawks. 

Another example is during Mom's or Dad's Weekend when the sororities invite one or the other to Oxford for the weekend. I know other campuses may have it so I will speak for everyone when I say that it is fun to grab dinner with your parent and then go to the bar with them. 

I could go on and on with examples of all the fun things to do at Miami during the weekend but I feel that it is safe to say that, even without the extreme tailgating, Miami is able to make the weekends fun and memorable and I wouldn’t want it any other way.