Dear Chancellor Oblinger,

Please don’t let tailgating die.

I am not confident with the Tailgating Task Force. I have the greatest respect for the students and administrators on the task force, but I believe the committee itself is little more than a show to placate students and alumni. We don’t need a bunch of forums to figure out what football fans think about tailgating restrictions. We all just want to go out and have fun, and the restrictions already in place are really killing the mood.

Sure, there have been a few complaints about loud music and some child-unfriendly environments. However, tailgate is a big place, and there are areas set aside for young and old alike.

What exactly is wrong with going out on a Saturday morning, socializing with your friends and fellow Pack fans, drinking some brews, grilling some food and playfully deriding the visiting team’s fans? There is so much right about tailgating, but a few stupid people do some stupid things, and all of a sudden we are making much ado about nothing.

All right, I’m not exactly calling the double homicide last year nothing. I am, however, calling it an isolated, random incident that seems to have sparked a campaign against one of the last bastions of good old-fashioned fun for both students and alumni.

What restrictions in place now could have prevented the infamous incident a couple of years back? Those guys were pissed off and wasted on some drugs that were a lot more vicious than our old friend alcohol.

I have a solution for our tailgating woes; it’s something the Task Force would never take seriously. Maybe if the ALE would take a break from busting all the freshmen trying to sneak a few beers and just concentrate on making sure everyone is getting along and nobody is getting run over, we wouldn’t have real criminals running amok.

It’s outrageous! You’ve got scores of 19-year-olds getting tickets for holding a beer, but where were the cops when Timothy Johnson pulled a gun — or even before that, when his two victims were beating the crap out of his little brother?

You can change this, Chancellor Oblinger. You are in charge, and even though there might be 100 different people who think they get to say how tailgate is going to be, you are the one who pulls the weight around here.

What good has the four-hour time frame for tailgating done? All we have to show for it is slightly worse traffic and a serious pain in the neck for anyone trying to cook barbecue.

What about the ‘even rule enforcement’ that has been repeatedly promised to students? No amount of verbal assurances that newly enacted tailgating restrictions will be justly applied will convince me of the University’s intention to actually do so.

Let’s face it; enforcement at football games is already biased against students (just take a look in the trash bins outside the Vaughn Towers and you’ll see what I mean).

We won’t ever be able to go back to the good old days of kegs in the Brickyard and a bar in the basement of Tucker Hall. What we can do is honor the past by keeping the football tailgate sacred and intact.

When the time comes to make these decisions, please remember the late Chancellor John T. Caldwell, renowned for his passion for both students and the spirit of our great University. We all have to take responsibility for our decisions; this one is up to you, Chancellor Oblinger; not this farce of a task force.