Emilee Prado
It’s 45 minutes to kickoff. Parents and the Southlake Carroll Dragon Band fill the stands, Carroll Cheer chants by the sidelines and the Dragons prepare to run out and take the field. Meanwhile, outside Dragon Stadium, young kids throw their own footballs in the parking lot, music blasts on the stereos and the smoky smell of freshly cooked brisket and barbecue spreads through the air.
Through all of the smiles, laughter and full bellies, Scott Hall, the man behind the grill, looks out proudly at what he and several other Dragon parents have built together.
“It’s become a real tradition for us over at Dragon Stadium,” Hall expresses. “People want to be there and want to be a part of it.”
Although Scott didn’t start the Best Fans Tailgate group, he’s helped grow and expand it well beyond its original attendance numbers. Back when it first started over 18 years ago, only a couple of parents came together in the neighborhood to put on their own tailgates. Now the Best Fans Tailgate accumulates around 100 participants every game, with more joining every season.
From The Aggies To The Dragons
Scott’s tailgating story extends way beyond the 15 years he’s been cooking for Best Fans Tailgate. When he was a teenager, he learned how to smoke, grill and cook everything under the sun by watching his uncle, who Scott says was a better cook than he is.
“He smoked briskets; he had fish fries; he knew how to do ribs on the smoker,” Scott recalls fondly. “I was hanging around with him and my dad, and kind of learned how to do it from him and continued to do it through college.”
As a passionate Texas A&M Aggie, Scott spent more of his fair share of time at games and tailgates. He fondly recalls memories in the back of a truck, sitting with his friends, playing music out of his dashboard radio and grilling hot dogs while drinking a beer.
“I’m a big sports guy,” he chuckles. “I love to have a good time, get together with people. That’s what got me into it.”
After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in industrial distribution, Scott immediately went to work in the diesel industry, which eventually led him and his wife Casey to move to Southlake in 1997. Scott’s still an Aggie at heart; he and Casey have been season ticket holders ever since 1989. Still, he quickly found a new football home in Southlake, discovering that his neighbors held the same kind of passion for the Carroll Dragons as he did for the Aggies.
It wasn’t until Scott met the founders of Best Fan Tailgate, however, that he put his skills on full display in Southlake.
Best Fans' Beginnings
Carroll ISD mothers Shirland Pike and Christie Johnson started hosting tailgates with their husbands Bob and Kirk when the stadium first opened in 2001. Back then, their daughters were going through Carroll High School, and the families were within walking distance of the new stadium.
So that’s exactly what they usually ended up doing after their tailgates on Friday nights.
“We would take one of those tiny Smokey Joe grills and cook bratwursts out of them,” Christie expresses. “That was our first little tailgate when they opened the new stadium. We bought a car flag pole and the Dragon flag, and that began to draw attention.”
Christie says her husband Kirk gave her a Carroll Dragon personalized license plate for Christmas that reads “BSTFAN.” That was where the name, Best Fans Tailgate, came from.
“When we started winning and making the playoffs, more people started coming to join the tailgate,” Christie recalls. “The playoff tailgates started to gain steam and grew each year. If we had an early morning game at the old Cowboy Stadium, we would make breakfast tacos. It just started growing. The whole town was swept up in Dragon football. It was a magical time.”
Scott was among one of the first friends to join in on the tailgating fun. He and his wife weren’t always able to come around due to having younger kids, but they soon found themselves more involved as both their kids and the tailgates continued to grow.
“Everybody that came was in a three-block radius,” Scott recalls. “We probably had about half a dozen families whenever we first started.”
Scott soon gradually found himself getting more involved with the event to the point of becoming its game day cook. From then on, Christie says attendance for the Best Fans Tailgate skyrocketed.
“One day he brought a bigger grill, and we really started growing,” Christie explains. “We decided it was time to up our game.”
Food, Football And Fellowship
Taking the cooking reigns for Best Fans Tailgate was natural for Scott. Not only did he upgrade the tailgate’s cooking capabilities from a grill to a sleek black smoker big enough to hold eight briskets but also he brought out a trailer complete with two 50-inch TVs, a satellite stereo, Blu-ray player, a microwave and a bathroom. They even have their own eight-foot-tall blowup Dragon football player the team affectionately nicknamed “Evan.”
They’ve also incorporated more elaborate menus and themes for every week’s game. Most of the time they’ll serve the typical tailgate meal such as brats and hot dogs. But on occasion, Scott says they’ll go all out and serve three folding tables worth of something really special such as brisket, fajitas, fried fish or boiled shrimp.
“We’re in the same spot every time,” Scott says. “If someone comes walking up asking, ‘What’re y’all doing here?’, they’re getting fed. They’ll have this giant plate and be like ‘I already had my meal before I came up here.’ Doesn’t matter. You’re gonna get fed whether you like it or not.”
After they’re done serving the brunt of their buffet, Scott says they’ll turn off the smoker, lock up the trailer, then head in to the game.
“My family and I will do the Dragons on Friday night, and then we go to the A&M home games as well on the same weekend,” Scott explains. “You don’t do the back-to-backs too often. It’s a lot of fun, but it’s a lot of work too.”
Scott says they make it a point to go to every Dragon game, whether it’s during the playoffs or the regular season. In the case of away games, Scott says they’ll take their act on the road, hitching up the trailer and towing it to wherever they’re going. He says they’ve been everywhere from Houston and San Antonio to the AT&T Stadium in Arlington and The Star in Frisco. He says they’re even looking ahead at an away game in Odessa later this year.
In the past four years that he’s been doing this, Scott says they have missed only one away game in Abilene due to a family conflict.
“I was disappointed we missed that one,” he muses.
Emilee Prado
On The Dragon's Road
Scott says one of the biggest misconceptions some people have on the Best Fans Tailgate is how difficult it is to organize. Game after game, everybody who participates brings something to share with the rest of the tailgaters in attendance. Christie herself always brings sausage balls and brownies during the regular season while Shirland would always bring appetizer dishes.
That leaves Scott to worry about the main entree, which to him is a joy to prepare.
“People have asked if it’s too big or too hard to handle,” Scott says. “It’s really not. Part of the secret to making the thing a success is to get people involved. If one or two people have to carry it all, then it becomes kind of a burden for them, no matter how much they enjoy it. But if you have a group of 10 families who are your core and you can count on them to get the ice, or the paper plates and all that kind of stuff, then it’s not that hard of a deal. That’s an easy sell. The biggest investment is time.”
Scott says it’s gotten so prominent to the point that the kids who were throwing Frisbees and playing cornhole when the tailgate first started are now bringing their own kids to enjoy the Best Fans Tailgate.
“Never did I think it would turn into something as big as this has over the years,” Shirland says. “We kind of thought that when our daughters graduated, we didn’t know how much we would keep doing that. It just kept growing and growing.”
Now Shirland’s grandson and Scott’s son are enrolled in Carroll High School. All three of Christie’s children have already graduated from Carroll ISD, but that doesn’t mean she finds herself less involved in the Best Fans Tailgate.
“We moved to Southlake to be part of a community, and that's what Friday night is all about,” Christie expresses. “It's not just about the football team. Our friends supported our kids while they were in school, and now it's our turn to do the same.”
Scott says he isn’t sure what he’ll be doing after his youngest daughter goes through the school system and graduates in 2026. But more likely than not, he’ll be behind the smoker grilling during his next Texas-sized tailgate spread.
“We’re not going to slow down, that’s for sure,” Scott chuckles. “It never really changes. It just gets bigger.”
The Best Fans’ Tailgate has already kicked off the season with a bang, with the Carroll Dragon’s first home game against the South Grand Prairie Warriors held August 30 at Dragon Stadium. Hungry fans can be a part of the action by stopping by before the next game at the center of the parking lot directly north of the press box, where the Best Fans Tailgate will be waiting with smoky avors and a warm greeting for their fellow Dragons.