As thousands dressed in crimson navigated toward the Oklahoma Memorial Stadium on Saturdays in the fall of 1988, a popular spot for fans to park was a certain house at Chautauqua Avenue and Lindsey Street.
A student who lived there, Joseph Harroz Jr., and his buddies would charge fans $10 to park their cars there, which included use of their pony keg.
Thirty-five years later, Harroz said one of the few downsides of being OU’s president is not being able to tailgate. And while it won’t change his own game day experience, per an announcement by the university on Tuesday, he intends to change that for others starting this season.
Tailgating will return to Lindsey Street this fall — specifically to Lindsey’s south side between Asp and Jenkins avenues on the front lawn of OU’s residential colleges directly across from the stadium. The change is part of a broader series of game day changes the university is implementing and evaluating ahead of its move to the Southeastern Conference in 2024.
“I was here from ’85 to ’89 and so most of our games lasted about 30 minutes,” Harroz told the OU Daily of his college days when Barry Switzer helmed the Sooners. “And then we’d go over to (the old) O'Connell's and they had a massive trough iced down with tons of beers and you’d go there and drink beer at halftime and never (go) back into the game because we'd already hung 50 on ‘em most of the time.”
One of the many upsides of Harroz’s current job is being able to make final calls on decisions like the one announced Tuesday.
While OU is set to announce a more comprehensive tailgating expansion next season, Harroz says this first step is an important one in a longer plan to compete with, and even surpass, SEC schools.
“It's really a step on the way to our move to the SEC,” Harroz says, looking back fondly of his experience as a student, of his vision for tailgating. “But the second step is going to be, as we go through this year, we're further studying what schools in the SEC do and analyzing the assets that we have to make sure that as we go into the SEC, as we go into not this football season, but the next football season, that what we have is hopefully the best in the SEC.”
Harroz and other university officials have been engaged with OU Athletic Director Joe Castiglione and the city of Norman since the Sooners announced their move, evaluating every expansion option campus offers. OU’s president and Norman Mayor Larry Heikkila lead Team Norman’s steering committee, aimed at guiding the Sooners’ transition to the conference.
SEC commissioner Greg Sankey said he was encouraged by Norman’s Chamber of Commerce’s trips to the conference’s towns to study ways to enhance the city’s tailgating plan.
“The game day atmosphere on our campuses is really special,” Sankey told the OU Daily in a 30-minute sit-down at SEC Media Days in Nashville. “Oklahoma has an incredible fan base, great facilities and I would anticipate they'll meet the SEC standard of excellence for tailgating pretty quickly.”
Before OU prohibited it in 2017, tailgating was allowed on Lindsey Street. For years, fans have advocated for its return.
Norman Chamber of Commerce President Scott Martin, who’s involved in examining everything from economic development to marketing strategies related to the SEC move, also sees a need for increased tailgating in the city.
“We have worked with the university and I think they’ve acknowledged that they're going to have to improve tailgating opportunities,” Martin told the OU Daily. “It’s something that a lot of other universities do really well and we have good tailgating, but I think we agree we're going to have to up our game a little bit and make sure it's even better, more thoughtful, well planned and available for fans.
“(OU officials are) intentionally looking at what they can do to improve tailgating and make it bigger and more fan friendly.”
OU fans tailgate before the game against Western Carolina Sep. 11, 2021.
Over the past several years, tailgating has become an event itself, separate from the games being played inside college football stadiums around the country. Harroz cited future SEC foe Mississippi and its 10-acre tailgating area, known as The Grove, as inspiration.
While the athletic department offers its input to Harroz and other interested parties, Castiglione said decisions about tailgating aren’t up to him but he’s excited for what’s to come this season and in the future.
“There's been a lot of good conversation about how we can continue to expand space for tailgating,” Castiglione told the OU Daily in July. “There was a time when tailgating was just OK, but in the last 20 years it's taken off and it's as good as anywhere in the country. We just know that we need more space and more fans.
“There are a lot of tailgating people that don't have tickets to the game, it’s a social atmosphere. And that's great, that's what we want to be able to accept. And of course you have new fan bases that are coming, some this year, who are coming to experience it.”
When the Sooners’ 2024 gauntlet of a conference schedule was released on June 14, second-year coach Brent Venables indicated on the ESPN+ release show he wanted to see vehicles on “every patch of grass” on campus.
Venables envisions a more robust game day experience overall when the Sooners enter the SEC and believes going to games should be an event.
“I want an amazing game day environment,” Venables told the OU Daily. “I love the idea of families creating lifelong experiences and memories that take them back to all those special moments along the way. And having an environment and an opportunity that blends into the campus community is part of that. And that’s how I see it, but I'm the coach.
“They don't necessarily ask me all those things, but I want just this amazing, connected, family vibe when you pull up to Norman, Oklahoma, on a game day. Before you ever get to the stadium, immediately know this must be game day and this is different. And I want that for everybody, I want people to take pride in that.”
Harroz told the OU Daily he’s committed to looking at every inch available on campus. One of OU’s strengths, he says, is its available space for tailgating expansion.
He also emphasized his vision for making sure OU is prepared to compete in all aspects of athletics, including fan environments, when it gets to the SEC.
“We know this is important,” Harroz said. “It will be special and our goal is to look at every blade of grass and figure out what's the right footprint for this and we're blessed to have a bunch of land and that's not something that everybody has and so we have a good number of options that are out there.
“From the Duck Pond all the way over to the land right between Campus Corner and the university to two ovals to the land we have along (Lindsey Street). We have so much real estate and then we have the parking lot at (the Lloyd Noble Center). We're going to have the new softball stadium, which frees up the other real estate that exists there.”
Besides returning tailgating to Lindsey Street, one of the things Harroz is most looking forward to ahead of the 2023 season is the chance to indulge in comprehensive fan polling. Starting this season, the university will survey folks tailgating on campus, but also experts and professionals in the space to create the best possible experience in 2024.
With three times as many people expected to travel to Norman for SEC games, safety during game days and cleanliness afterward have also moved up Harroz’s priority list. The OU Police Department’s staff has declined amid a lack of competitive pay as the university continues to grow its student population, the OU Daily reported last October.
“It's a big operation. What it was in the ’80s is not what it is now,” Harroz said. “So you have to scale up and fortunately, we've spent a lot of time around event production. It's an event. What takes place in the stadium has its event management team, but so does tailgating. You have to know what your ratio is of people to the existing porta potties and you have to make sure you have enough police officers.
“We think about game day management. There was a time when you really just thought about what was inside of that stadium, and then it became what's inside of the stadium, plus what kind of security do you have outside before you go in? But now it really is the entire experience, which tailgating is a critical part of.”
From reflecting on his tailgating memories as an OU student to collaborating with city officials, experts and Castiglione, Harroz thinks fans will react positively to the expansions he decided on for this season.
Think of it, he emphasized, as a building block for what is to come.
It’s the initial piece of what Harroz, who ultimately green lit the school’s “There’s Only One Oklahoma” rebrand last spring, envisions tailgating on campus becoming. It’s also part of Norman’s plan to increase fan engagement, boost revenue and create one of the best college football game day experiences in the country.
“This is a change but it's not the final change,” Harroz said. “We'll see something even bigger and more exciting as we head into next year’s football season.”
