Metro Pulse/Gamut/UT: Party School?

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Is UT really the number one party school in America? Does anyone really care?

by Joe Tarr

When the University of Tennessee was named number one party school in the country by the Princeton Review, a lot of Knoxville residents started scratching their heads. UT doesn't have a reputation for having lofty standards of higher education. And the average college student can certainly find beer and pot (and with a little luck, sex) without too much trouble. But Numero Uno party school? Here?

It just didn't add up. If UT was a non-stop party fest, why weren't there drug dealers on every corner in the Fort, naked co-eds streaking through campus, and all-night raves every weekend? And how come we weren't invited to the party? Sure, there are some noisy house parties out in the Fort every weekend, but they all seem to be your garden variety keggers. It hardly appears to be partying as high art, or even partying to exceptional excess, measured by college standards.

In the spirit of old fashioned journalism, we set out to find out just what kind of party UTers throw. And whether we'd be allowed in the door.

We park down at the west end of Fort Sanders, at 22nd and Laurel. The air is chilly, but we pick this night—being the weekend before Halloween and the Friday night before the Vols battle the tough South Carolina Gamecocks in Neyland Stadium—because we figure it'll be ripe for parties. At the moment, however, the Fort is strangely quiet.

It's only 9:30, though. Early, for college students, most of whom should just be waking up from their evening naps. Wandering across 22nd Street along Laurel, we find a couple of parties in their infancy. A guy and girl sit on the porch of one, lighting cigarettes. They happily invite us in. The house is populated by some fraternity brothers (I remember it has an Alpha in it, but frankly they all sound the same to me...) who have constructed a wooden bar along the wall of their dining room. Pictures of women dancing on the bar are taped to the end of it. They promise that if we stick around, we'll see the real thing for ourselves before the night is out. They offer us plastic cups filled with Natural Ice—not my favorite beer, but hell, it's free. I start talking to some guy named Eddie who goes to school in Kentucky. A high school friend goes to UT, and he visits him often because the Knoxville campus is much more exciting than his own.

Eddie says there are a lot more bars and parties here, while everyone is uptight at his own school. He's excited about being interviewed, but stops mid-sentence to follow a tall blonde who has just walked in. I don't take it personally.

Luckily, I've come with friends, and I mosey over to the periphery of their conversation. There's an attractive girl with blonde hair wearing a tight purple shirt that leaves her shoulder and arm exposed. She says she's a senior. We ask her what makes UT such a great party school. She laughs and exhales cigarette smoke. "Because," she says, "we drink, we smoke and we fuck!" Everyone cheers.

We head east, climbing up Laurel Avenue, and make our way to the new Jefferson Commons complex off of Highland Avenue. The Fort still seems subdued. We climb the stairs, and hunt for parties. From the walkways, we can see down across the parking lot to the adjacent buildings, but not much seems to be happening. Here and there, a TV flickers through a window. Outside one apartment, we find two students cooking hotdogs and hamburgers over a charcoal grill (as well as warming themselves against the late October cold). I'm a big fan of grilling out, but I wonder if this is what the Princeton Review had in mind when they named UT number one party school. The students assure us there really are big parties here—sometimes huge lines pour out of apartments across the way.

For a slice of different student life, we head up to the Brezhnev-esque graduate student tower at Laurel and 16th Street. It's largely populated by married students, many of them from overseas. We climb into the elevator and hit 10. Before we get there, an Asian woman gets on, cradling a sleeping baby in her arms. She looks at us uncertainly, as the smell of fresh linen and baby powder permeates the elevator. The T-shaped 10th floor is eerily quiet. There isn't a soul stirring. It feels like a hospital ward abandoned by nurses and orderlies. We creep down one hallway, listening for sounds of activity. Three people get off the elevator a minute later. They eye us suspiciously before heading into an apartment, and we tiptoe up to the door. We can smell fresh popcorn, and hear the sound of a TV through the door. Another Friday night in the party capital of the free world.

We need a drink. Badly. The Natural Ice has long since worn off. No more pussyfooting around. We head south, to the Cumberland Avenue strip. Finally, there are people. Lots of them. But not any more than you'd see in any other nightclub and restaurant district, college or otherwise. After flashing our IDs, we're allowed into Hanna's Cafe. I squeeze my way to the bar, but it takes me a good 10 minutes to get the attention of a bartender. With beers in hand, we find a table near the back. What is it that makes a good party? I ask. It helps if there are lots of people you know, we agree. And of course, good food and drink. But one big criteria we decide—at least from the point of view of a college student—would be lots of women. We think this criteria works with both sexes, as lots of women will draw lots of guys. And lots of women will theoretically reduce the chances of a single woman being harassed by lots of obnoxious guys. On that level, Hanna's works—there seem to be about equal numbers of men and women, although they tend to be clustered in small unisex groups, watching each other.

At one table, four guys are sitting around finishing off a pitcher of beer. We ask them about UT's alleged party superiority. They snort and roll their eyes. "If this is the number one party school in the country, I feel sorry for all the other schools," the most talkative one says. He thinks UT is too cliquish to be a great party school. We ask the guys what they do for fun. They look at each other, at their beer, and back at us. "This is it," one of them says.

As we leave Hanna's, a line of people waiting to get in stretches down the sidewalk. We cross the street for something a little more our style—the Longbranch. We'd been tipped off that a wild bunch of geology grad students are celebrating upstairs, so we head over to crash the party. Believe it or not, these budding earth scientists are the liveliest bunch we've seen all night. Most of them are dressed up and dancing to hyperkinetic dance music throbbing from the speakers. A friend tells me that one of the dancers—a guy in a mullet wig—got his undergrad degree at Penn State, my alma mater. When he heads out on the balcony, I corner him. His name is Mike. We agree this number one party school stuff is a bunch of malarkey. "Everyday, I can't wait to get out of this Strip area," he said. "Just to get away from all these damn fast food restaurants and convenience stores. I hate it. This Strip was a big disappointment to me." He longed for some home-grown shops and restaurants that give a place character.

Now, Penn State is far from the greatest college on earth. But it has a beautiful campus with lots of green space and trees to stretch out under. Its student neighborhoods haven't been completely overwhelmed by ugly cookie-cutter apartment complexes. And it's got a traditional college strip area, with mom and pop restaurants, bars and shops. These may not immediately relate to partying, but in my book, environment has a profound effect a person's state of mind. When you look out on UT's strip, all you see are cars whizzing by.

One of Mike's friends, clutching a nearly empty bottle of Crown Royal, blurts in to disagree. He points across the street to Hanna's, and the long line of people wrapping around the block. "It's like that after midnight on a Wednesday night," he says. This is hard to refute.

Just then, the balcony is swarming with cops. With Mike's friend swinging the bottle freely, I worry they may harass us, but they're preoccupied with another inebriated gentleman. "Even though you're in a bar, you can still be arrested for public intoxication," they tell him. His big crime: waving an orange flag over the balcony.

If you judge a party school by its need for police surveillance and protection, UT may well qualify for the title. Out on 18th Street, there are nine police cars parked in a row.

We head back into the heart of the Fort to see if any of the parties are in full swing. We're not disappointed. Kids spill out onto the front lawn of one house in the 1700 block of Highland. The hosts have staked citronella torches along the front walk for a festive look. There's a party here roughly every other week, they tell us. They charge $5 a head to cover the cost of beer. They say UT was much more of a party school about two years ago, but the police have been cracking down. They invite us in. People line the hallways, and everyone seems to be staring at us. The largest group of people is out back, where they huddle around the keg. This crowd differs from any other we've seen, and from college parties of years past, in that it is amazingly diverse. The majority are white, but there are many African Americans and Asians. One woman carries a large backpack with Native American buttons pinned on it. Points for an interesting group, then—but the overall timbre of the party, while lively, is hardly the stuff of Animal House.

We drop by another JPI complex, where we notice a police car sitting in the parking lot, but there's no sign of an officer. There's at least one party going on here, probably more, but the building has the fluidity of a dorm, or a Motel 6, with students popping in and out of different apartments. When we start taking pictures, several of them run down to the parking lot to pose. "What's this for anyways?" they ask afterwards. Few of them are sober or interested enough to wait for an answer.

For a final stop, we head back to the house at 22nd and Laurel, where we started our crawl. It's as packed as they promised it would be. As we approach, a guy who is leaving offers us his plastic cup. "You won't have to pay," he says. But none of us has much energy for it. It's past 1 a.m., we don't know anybody, and while it's been an interesting evening, we realize that none of us really misses our college days. Frankly, we'd rather just go home. Just then, the host we talked to earlier staggers outside with a friend and heads to his car parked out front. "Don't worry," he announces loudly to the people assembled on the porch and lawn. "Everybody stay here. I'm going to get a keg." He looks around. "Hey, if there are any pledges out here, save my parking spot."

He seems a little too drunk to walk, but his driving looks OK.

We head back down the street toward our own cars. It occurs to us that, number one or number 100, UT may have all the partying it can handle.