ANNA HANSEN
A bed sheet banner was current this year: “The Bulls Killed Jimmy Buffett” hung on an aging porch. “Grab the Bulls by the horns” draped over the peeling paint of a balcony.
A muggy Saturday ushered in the 2023 Badger football season and with it throngs of people in red and white, part clothing, part sunburn.
At 10 a.m. Saturday, the atmosphere in the Camp Randall area was lively on the first day of coach Luke Fickell’s era, the air stagnant and humid. It was like someone poured stale beer into an industrial humidifier and let it run at full blast. But when the 30-degree temperatures disturbed the pontificating brass band or the revelers in overalls, no one showed it.
Here for the party (and only for the party)
Chuck Elliott rings in his 51st year as a Badger football player by bartending for a group of friends at Choles Floral Bar on Saturday…
Chuck Elliott, 78, had set up shop in the Choles Floral parking lot by 10:15 a.m., wearing a double bottomed bottom of his shorts and a satisfied smile on his face while bartending for his many friends.
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However, Elliott didn’t come by to watch the game on Saturday. In fact, he hasn’t even had tickets in recent years. It is enough for him to hold judgment.
“I love tailgating so much,” Elliott said. “It’s the most incredible gathering of any game. We’re all friends, we bring all things.”
It would be a challenge to find someone more into the art of tailgate than Elliott. After 51 years of game-day escapades, he made it to science. Arrive at least three hours before the game, sometimes earlier. By 10:15 a.m. Saturday, he had completed the 40-minute drive from his home in Janesville. Set up the tents and tables, set out the refreshments, coolers and hand puppet mascots Bucky and Buckette.
Although she was absent on Saturday due to the heat, Elliott’s dance partner, his wife Pat, has been an even bigger constant in his life than football season. The two have been a tailgate staple since 1972, six years after their marriage. At home, too, he makes it a point to dance the polka with her for an hour a day.
“We always dance when we come here,” he said.
To make up for her absence, Elliott gave his best performance of what some would call “Funky Chicken” while basking in the midday sun and the laughter of his friends.
But what does a man like Elliott do who has no playing cards and doesn’t feel like buying them when everyone is strolling down to the stadium for the 2:30 p.m. kick-off?
“We’re just going home,” he said. “We sit on the couch and pretend to be old.”
Behind enemy lines
A single bruise stood out from the crowds of red and white as these five Bulls fans roam Regent Street ahead of Saturday afternoon’s game…
In an almost biblical way, the red (and white) sea parted near the border between Randall Avenue and Regent Street for a group of men in Bulls gear who gathered around beer pong tables and played cornhole and for merrymaking and slander.
“It’s about 50:50,” said Conrad Berry, 24. “We’ve got some trash talkers, some nice people.”
After having a few beers, Berry said that he and the rest of that blue-man group expected the Bulls to win. Most notably John and Ian Dolac, proud older brothers of Shaun Dolac, a linebacker for this season opener’s Badgers opponent, the Buffalo Bulls.
“This guy from Braelon Allen is pretty good, but he’s going to find out what a real linebacker is like today,” Berry said of the Badgers running back. “He’s going to be silenced pretty hard.”
Win or lose, the Buffalo boys agreed that their main goal for the day was to get out of Madison with nothing thrown at them. So far, they said, so good. How they would fare after the game could depend on whether Dolac “dominates” as his biggest fans predicted.
And so football returned to Camp Randall, ushered in by cheap beer, temporary tattoos and sunburns.
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