Andy, or as some refer to him "Captain Andy", does most of the driving and is responsible for the care and feeding of the FansVan.
The FansVan Crew
The FansVan crew is made up of a group of Dawg Pound season ticket holders who hail from Akron, Canton, Massillon and Dover. It's a great bunch of guys who share a passion for tailgating and football. Win or lose, we always have a lot of laughs, which is no great feat with a bunch of jokers like this. The photo that you see here was taken after the 34-14 drubbing of the New England Patriots on November 7th, 2010 .....who would have ever seen that coming! The two little dudes kneeling are John's son Ben and his buddy Jacoby. It was their first Browns game. Click on the photo to enlarge.
Meet the Crew
- Andy
- John
- Tim
- Jim
- Grizz
- Frank
- GTD
John has been a season ticket holder the longest out of the group. He's pretty much the glue that holds everything together and he always has some tasty grub to offer.....ask him about his "Bacon Explosion"!!
Tim, a law enforcemant officer, is Jim's son. He's also Grizz's cornhole team mate. If you plan to challenge them to a game you'd best bring your "A" game.....these guys are brutal and show no mercy!
Jim, aka Papa Jimmy, lives in Akron and is Tim's dad. He's always quick to offer a cigar and some candy. I think he enjoys game day more than any of us because he gets to spend it with his son.
New for 2014, Grizz has become a permanent member of the FansVan crew. He has been to plenty of games with us in the past as an honorary member. A great addition to the crew.
As of 2015, Frank is on board as a member of the crew. He is Tim's partner on the Canton PD has been to plenty of games with us in the past. Frank is a great guy who adds a lot to the gameday shenanigans.
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The "GameTime Decision". It's anybody's guess who's going to get our extra seat on Sunday!
A Day In The Life
Pre-Game
Most folks don't realize what goes into a great tailgate. For the veteran tailgater game day always starts the day before and is pretty much an all day event in itself. For us, the day revolves around what time the Buckeyes play, but it always starts by making a checklist. BJ's Wholsale Club down the street is always the first stop to fuel up the FansVan. Next is the grocery store to pick up everything for the Sunday menu. When the errands are finished it's time to head home, flip on some college football and get started on any food prep for Sunday. Once all of the prep is done anything and everything that can be loaded up the night before is packed into the FansVan. Whatever remains is laid out by the door so nothing gets left behind in the morning. By now it's around 6:00pm or so and time to chill out for the evening. The last thing to do before racking out for the night is to set up the coffee maker. If you don't have an automatic coffee maker, get one.There's nothing like having your coffee ready the minute your feet hit the floor in the morning. So this probably all sounds like a lot of work, but getting all of this out of the way the day before saves time in the morning on game day and allows for a little extra sack time.
Game Day
The alarm goes off around 4:30am. Time to head downstairs and pour a cup of coffee and Bailey's. If there's any food prep that needs to be finished or last minute cooking to be done that gets handled. Then it's off to the shower. The last thing to do is pack the coolers, finish loading everything into the FansVan and wait for the crew to arrive. Around 5:30 the boys start rolling in. We push back from the gate around 5:45 and start rolling north on I-77. Around 6:15 we pick up Jim at White Pond Dr. and continue up I-77 to the Dock 32 lot. We arrive around 6:30 and begin setting up for a six hour tailgate. Now it's time to sit back, crack a beer, throw some bags and play a little Sunday morning quarterback .All, of course, while enjoying some kick-ass grub. We start our walk to Dawg Pound sec 119 around 12:40....just enough time to make kickoff.
After the game we head back to Dock 32 where we turn on the 4:00 game, lick our wounds and grill up some more grub while we wait out the traffic. FYI, waitng out traffic is always better holding a burger than holding a steering wheel! Once we see that the coast is clear, usually around 6:00 or so, we tear down, load up and start our way back. We drop Jim off at his car in Akron and finish up the drive back to Canton. By the time we get back to Canton it's usually around 8:00pm. At this point about all any of us can do is just drag our arses in the house, flop on the couch and catch the late game on TV. That's pretty much it, a sixteen hour day from start to finish. Sometimes we ask ourselves why we keep doing this. The answer is always the same. We do it because we're Browns fans...THE MOST LOYAL FANS IN ALL OF SPORTS!!.