Tales from the Tailgate: From the Fan Who's Seen 'em All

by Stephen J. Koreivo

One hundred twenty NCAA schools compete today in the Football Bowl Subdivison. Over the past 30 years, one fan made the effort to attend a game played by each team at least once. He did it, and he has two kids and he's still married to the same woman for 22 years! Here is a fun story every college football fan has to read.

228 pages, Paperback

First published July 12, 2011

About the author

Since 1979, the author has attended 421 college football games and over the years, he made the effort to see every major college football team (D-1A or FBS, take your pick) play at least once. And he's still married to the same woman for 23 years and has two kids! His experiences told in this book are not just about the exciting action witnessed on the field to "see 'em all", but about the enjoyable times and adventures shared with family members and friends including some made along the way to see every major team play at least once. He shares his stories, history, and upcoming schedules each year on his website www.collegefootballfan.com. Not affiliated with the media or employed by any athletic organization, he made this effort financially on his own and with great patience and support of family and friends. A graduate of Juniata College and an MBA from Seton Hall University, Koreivo has been a Purchasing professional in the plastics and chemical industries among others for over thirty years, so in addition to a family, he's been able to keep his career on course despite his great infatuation with college football. For 11 years during his "offseason" , he coached youth baseball and basketball managing several successful All-Star baseball teams and served on the local Little League board of directors for eight years. He served as League President in his final year. He plans to continue attending college football games of his choice now for as long as he can. He and his wife "Saint" Laurie, and his children Alexandra and Eric reside in Byram Twp., NJ. Alex now attends the University of South Carolina majoring in Exercise Science. Eric enters his senior year at Lenape Valley Regional High School where he plays offensive line and throws the shot put on the track team.

Reviews

[Barry]

This book is an interesting memoir: it revolves completely around the author's experience in watching all the top level college football schools in America. The best part of the book is by far the stories of him getting to games, tailgating, leaving games, working around problems, and other warm and entertaining anecdotes. The details of the games are rather secondary, in my view, but Mr. Koreivo has pieced together a unique story revolving around a singular feat. Despite the fact that this book is a memoir, I found that there were emotional highs and lows written into the course of the story. I found myself growing disappointed as the book wound to a close, and I realized I didn't want the story to end.

In addition to the sometimes too-large of a focus on the game stats, I also found some odd usages of italics that distracted from the flow of reading. These points are fairly easy to overlook, and the personable writing style of Mr. Koreivo is well worth the read.

[I received this book for free through a goodreads.com giveaway, but I gladly submitted this review with no pressure from anyone.]

[Stephen Koreivo]

As the author, I love living this continuing story and sharing a large part of it with others through this book. I enjoyed writing about this to share a fun, life-long adventure with others. I hope that not only will die-hard sports fans, particularly college football fans of all ages across the country, enjoy it, but I hope that others who enjoy fun, humor, travel, frienships, and family will enjoy how I got to share my adventure with many others along the way. This book tells tales of 100 different games I attended within 228 pages. I've been to 421 games in total through 2011. If this book is successful, I have a lot more tales to tell! Follow my adventures on collegefootballfan.com.

[Destiny Esper]

I received this book through a Goodreads giveaway.

It proved to be pretty entertaining. It was like re-living my college days all over again. I loved it!

[Seth]

This book is for all of us college football fans. The stories are interesting and unique. I would have give it 5*, if Koreivo had visited Oxford, MS and been to the Holy Grail of tailgating.