# College football and toilet paper streamers. **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [October 13, 2013, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-football-and-toilet-paper-streamers/671110 "2013-10-13T02:21:07Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![R.P.McMurphy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/7993a0/32.png) [@R.P.McMurphy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/R.P.McMurphy)\ **Post date:** [October 13, 2013, 2:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-football-and-toilet-paper-streamers/671110/1 "2013-10-13T02:21:07Z")
Back in the day, at college football games, when the home team scored dozens of toilet paper rolls would be thrown to create streamers in the stands. I assume that most of it was stolen from the dorms by the students. I don’t see it anymore. Is it a fad that passed? Was it something that was cracked-down on? If so, how? Did the dorms quit supplying toilet paper? Not saying I necessarily approve of it but it looked kind of cool at the time. What happened? ---
**Author:** ![That\_Don\_Guy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/that_don_guy/32/538_2.png) [@That\_Don\_Guy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/That_Don_Guy)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2013, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-football-and-toilet-paper-streamers/671110/2 "2013-10-16T13:31:40Z")
Was it widespread? I vaguely remember it being associated with particular universities, although I can’t find any references to it in any list of “college football traditions” (the closest is when Auburn fans TP Toomer’s Oaks). ---
**Author:** ![Zeldar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/b77776/32.png) [@Zeldar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Zeldar)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2013, 1:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-football-and-toilet-paper-streamers/671110/3 "2013-10-16T13:44:01Z")
> [@That\_Don\_Guy](#): > > Was it widespread? I vaguely remember it being associated with particular universities, although I can’t find any references to it in any list of “college football traditions” (the closest is when Auburn fans TP Toomer’s Oaks). That [tradition](http://www.toomerscorner.com/) is on hold due to the absence of those oaks. ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2013, 6:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-football-and-toilet-paper-streamers/671110/4 "2013-10-16T18:54:54Z")
I’m guessing that back then, you could come in with a bunch of crap, and nobody would care. Now they search your bags and limit what you can bring in, so I’m betting rolls of TP would be disallowed. ---
**Author:** ![R.P.McMurphy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/7993a0/32.png) [@R.P.McMurphy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/R.P.McMurphy)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2013, 2:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-football-and-toilet-paper-streamers/671110/5 "2013-10-17T02:57:36Z")
> [@bump](#): > > I’m guessing that back then, you could come in with a bunch of crap, and nobody would care. > > Now they search your bags and limit what you can bring in, so I’m betting rolls of TP would be disallowed. You are probably right. However, the TP won’t set off metal detectors. Do you think security would get suspicious if 1000 students said they were scheduled for a colonoscopy the next day? ---
**Author:** ![bump](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7c8e57/32.png) [@bump](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bump)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2013, 1:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-football-and-toilet-paper-streamers/671110/6 "2013-10-17T13:24:56Z")
> [@R.P.McMurphy](#): > > You are probably right. However, the TP won’t set off metal detectors. Do you think security would get suspicious if 1000 students said they were scheduled for a colonoscopy the next day? Not that I’ve been to many games over the past decade or so, but the few that I have been to have limited the type and size of bag (i.e. purse, but no backpacks, etc…) and have required you to open them up and let them peer in. So there was no way to get TP into the stands if the school didn’t want you to unless you planted it ahead of time or had someone on the inside, so to speak. ---
**Author:** ![fiddlesticks](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiddlesticks/32/18129_2.png) [@fiddlesticks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/fiddlesticks)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2013, 3:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-football-and-toilet-paper-streamers/671110/7 "2013-10-17T15:57:34Z")
I went to University of Wisconsin football games as a kid with my parents in the 80s then as a student starting in '92. Don’t remember TP being a thing back in the 80s and it certainly wasn’t in the 90s. Marshmallows (with pennies for ballast) were the projectile of choice (though Buckeye QB Kirk Herbstreit got famously nailed by a tomato in '92). Marshmallows were banned, naturally, but people smuggled them in… the security checks got more and more TSA-like (before there was a TSA) but after the Rose Bowl season people were less interested in throwing shit. The TP dispensers in the dorms were all of the locked down variety by my time, so if you wanted to throw TP, you had to pay for it. 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a587f6/32.png) [@Freddy\_the\_Pig](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freddy_the_Pig)\ **Post date:** [October 17, 2013, 8:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/college-football-and-toilet-paper-streamers/671110/8 "2013-10-17T20:47:39Z")
I agree that TP today would be well-nigh impossible, but I think it faded long before stepped-up security. Mostly I remember it from the 1970’s. I think it was a fad that passed, and now cannot be revived.