NORTH SHORE — Former Pitt head football coach Dave Wannstedt started tailgating at approximately 4 p.m. yesterday for Pitt’s opening game against Wofford scheduled for 3:30 p.m. Saturday, parking lot staff being offered bratwursts on the North Shore report.
“You see tons of these guys come in with their khakis and polos,” said Gold Lot attendant Mark Henderson, “but usually they aren’t ready for a four-day banger, waving around a fifth of vodka and yelling ‘Pitt is it!’ at the top of their lungs. And how he fit that entire kegerator into his sedan is beyond me.”
Passersby allegedly mistook Wannstedt for a bar patron who had wandered towards the stadium.
“At first, I thought it was just some drunk,” said Celia Russo, who admitted to accepting a can of Miller Lite from Wannstedt “just to boost his spirits.” “Then he asks if I want a fresh bowl of ‘touchdown chili’ and I realize he’s there for Pitt’s game Saturday. I have to say, it smelled pretty good, but I wasn’t really in the mood for tailgate food after leaving work on a Tuesday.”
“He told me I could still stop down over the next 80-some hours, though, if I ever changed my mind,” she added.
Wannstedt claimed he couldn’t resist the allure of celebrating a new season, no matter how early.
“The sights, the sounds — the tub of Everclear-heavy jungle juice I spilled all over the backseat — it just calls to me,” said Wannstedt, encouraging any nearby persons to take a “celeb shot” in his one-man game of beer pong or a simultaneous game of cornhole. “A shame I can’t party like I used to. A decade ago [as head coach of the Pitt program], I would’ve gotten this bad boy started sometime in late July, early August. Guess I just have to party even harder now to make up for lost time!”
As of press time, Wannstedt’s right hand was ahead of his left hand 38 games to 29, but the Baldwin native remained confident there was enough time for his left hand to even the score over the next “three or four hundred games.”
