It’s just past 10 o’clock on Sunday morning, three hours before the Dolphins will kick off the 2019 season against the Ravens, and the North East plaza at Hard Rock Stadium is bustling with activity.

At the team’s fourth-annual Football Unites CommUNITY Tailgate, large overhead fans are whirling at full capacity, while a DJ shuffles between mid-1990s and early 2000s hip-hop classics – 2Pac and Ja Rule are the biggest crowd-pleasers – and radio-friendly Drake hits.

A behemoth foosball table in the right corner clicks and clacks, and to the left, an assembly line of young members from Davie Police Athletic League (PAL) and 5000 Role Models packs kits with hygiene supplies to distribute to those affected by Hurricane Dorian in the Bahamas.

Hot and cold food stations on the opposite end of the plaza are stocked with hamburgers, salads, chips and an assortment of sugary treats, and adjacent refrigerators are crammed with water bottles and soda cans.

“Our owner, Stephen Ross, our players and coaches paid for this tailgate with the idea of bringing four to five groups that would’ve never thought of connecting in their regular walks of life,” said Jason Jenkins, Dolphins Senior Vice President of Communications and Community Affairs. “South Florida is a melting pot of a lot of intersections, and we want to make sure that we’re reflective of all the groups that are coming here.”

Dolphins senior executive @jasonljenkins welcomes attendees to the Football Unites CommUNITY Tailgate. pic.twitter.com/xpVznqa5Zl

— Dolfans NYC (@DolfansNYC) September 8, 2019

The initiative is part of a series of community service projects planned for the 2019 season, which also include ride-along programs designed to foster positive communication between police and youth, as well as cultural tours through a partnership with the Greater Miami Convention & Visitors Bureau.

While some of the Dolphins’ previous social-progress leaders, including Kenny Stills, a three-time Nat Moore Community Service Award winner, are no longer on the team, Raekwon McMillan, Bobby McCain, Jerome Baker, Albert Wilson and Xavien Howard are among the players who’ve carried on the legacy of their predecessors.

Dolphins alumni, including tailgate attendees Nate Garner, an offensive tackle from 2008 to 2014, and Ed Perry, a tight end and long snapper from 1997 to 2004, have also continued to be prominently involved in efforts to unite people of different races, genders, sexual orientations and identities through sports.

“Our players have been extremely supportive and active, not only financially, but with their time to the program,” Jenkins said. “We’re stewards in this community and this brand. We have this commitment and responsibility to make sure we can make South Florida united, make South Florida healthy and make South Florida more educated, as well.

“Our owner has been there every step of the way. (Vice Chairman, President and CEO) Tom Garfinkel really gave us the opportunity to lay out this vision, and it’s great that (we’re) seeing it come to fruition each and every day.”

Since its inception in 2015, the tailgate has grown organically, primarily through word of mouth, from 10 participating organizations to over 60.

Jenkins believes that’s only the beginning.

“Our capacity is limitless in what we want to do,” he said. “We believe in humanity, we believe in football having the ability to bring people together and we’re very fortunate to be able to provide these platforms to bring our youth together.”

On Sunday, the Miami Dolphins posthumously named Aaron Feis – an assistant coach at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High who sacrificed his life to shield students from gunfire at February’s shooting in Parkland, Fla. – as the 2018 George F. Smith High School Coach of the Year.

Greeted by a standing ovation from the crowd, Feis’ wife, Melissa, and daughter, Arielle, accepted the award on the fallen hero’s behalf during a third-quarter ceremony on the Hard Rock Stadium field.

Coach Aaron Feis lost his life protecting students during the Stoneman Douglas High School shooting.

Today, we honored his legacy by presenting his wife and daughter the George Smith High School Coach of the Year Award. pic.twitter.com/4VA4EpqXfj

— Miami Dolphins (@MiamiDolphins) September 9, 2018

“It’s an honor for all of us, really, for Coach Feis to get the Coach of the Year Award,” said Eagles Head Football Coach Willis May. “If you knew him, you would appreciate that he got that award, because he really was a great man, mentor, friend and dad. For him to get the award was definitely an honor and well deserved. Anybody who knew Coach Feis loved him. We miss him every day and we’re very happy for him, his family and all the MSD family.”

Feis, a one-time Eagles standout center, served as both coach and school security guard at his alma matter for over a decade, taking pride in giving back to his beloved community in every way possible.

On top of instilling knowledge to linemen, warmly welcoming recruiters, and patrolling campus grounds on a daily basis, Feis helped as many as 70 players find collegiate football opportunities by compiling highlight DVDs and YouTube videos for anyone who asked, according to an ESPN.com profile.

In addition to honoring Feis, the Dolphins also named the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School football team as the Team of the Week and hosted players at the home opener.

“As far as being here today and getting to opportunity to get to be here, it’s amazing,” May said. “Our kids had a blast. To be on the field pregame, I saw mouths dropped. Everybody was just in awe and they were just incredibly touched. What a wonderful day for our kids and our program and we had a blast. We loved it and we can’t thank the Miami Dolphins enough for everything they’ve done for us since February 14. We want to say thank you and how much we appreciate it and what they’ve done for our kids, it’s amazing.”

Ignoring everything that happened after 1pm, yesterday was a tremendous success. We had over 1000 Dolphins fans sit together, threw one hell of a tailgate and raised a TON of money for charity. I just wanted to quickly thank everyone who came out especially our volunteers and everyone who helped us get stuff on and off the busses. The day went very smoothly right up until the moment the game started.

Huge shout out to Urban Tailgate for their help with the party. We had a few tiny hiccups (the Jets wouldn’t lets us park our busses by the tailgate!) but overall it was amazing. We had some complaints about the cost before the tailgate but I didn’t hear a single complaint afterwards. I have a feeling we are not gonna have any trouble selling tickets next year.  This tailgate was fairly last minute and I can’t wait until next year because we are gonna up the game on everything. Next year should be epic.

Thanks to DJ Tropic for playing music and Solo D and DWA for playing a few songs and keeping the crowd going long after the performance.

Thanks to Joe Rose and the team at Cup Of Joe for taping their show live at our tailgate.  Nat Moore and Tom Garfinkel were guests on the show and hung out a bunch. Thanks to Jason Jenkins who helped put that together and has been at pretty much every Takeover. He’s a huge supporter of what we do. Jim Jenson came by the tailgate too just to hang out. That was pretty amazing. Thanks Crash!

And finally thanks to our liquor sponsor Sailor Jerry. They have sponsored the last few tailgates and we really appreciate the love. I think they actually have a bar at Hard Rock Stadium.

I am sure I am missing some people but we will thank them all in the wrap up video. We will also have an update of all the money we were able to donate to charity thanks to this weekend, but I should mention that the Cam Wake signed helmet raffle raised nearly $1800 alone for the Miami Dolphins Foundation and we donate $500 to Kiko Alonso’s hurricane fundraiser after the raffle we did at the party at Slattery’s Saturday night.

I gotta be honest and tell you that after the tailgate last year I was completely burnt out and ready to never do this again, but this year I am just sunburnt and ready to start planning the 2018 Takeover!

Phins up, Jets still suck, check out all the pictures below!

Tonight is Monday Night Football and in celebration today the 2015 #MetLifeTakeover video is here! The Dolphins might have lost the game but looking back in 10 years hopefully all we will remember is how much fun we had!

This video was shot by Greg Jeske and edited and hosted by Alex Bente. It featured interviews with Nat Moore, Tom Garfinkel, Andrew Abramson, Solo D, The Fintroopers and even Ace Ventura! Plus there is dancing… lots of dancing!

Thanks again to our sponsors Pabst Blue Ribbon, Sailor Jerry and AquaHydrate! Thanks to everyone who helped with the tailgate and everyone who helped with this video!

Honestly I don’t really know what else to say but watch the video and show it to everyone! Phins up!

2015 #MetLifeTakeover from Dolfans NYC on Vimeo.

This season has obviously been disappointing and Sunday was pretty much a disaster on the field but off the field we had a hell of a time. It’s hard to explain to someone who has never been to a #MetLifeTakeover but there is truly no better experience as a Miami Dolphins fan. Obviously I am a bit biased but when you get to tailgate with hundreds of fans and then all walk in and sit with 1000 Dolfans and make so much noise that you can hear us on TV even in a disaster of a game it’s the greatest feeling in the world.

In the fourth quarter we were getting killed and for some reason most of the Jets fans had already left the game. A lot of Dolphins fans had left too, but our section was still filled with a ton of die hards. The Dolphins scored and we sang the fight song as loud as we could. We then recovered and onside kick and were cheering like crazy. Then, the Dolphins being the Dolphins, we fumbled the ball and the few remaining Jets fans started laughing at us. I turned to our remaining crowd and started chanting “Let’s Go Dolphins” as loud as I could. The rest of crew joined me and all you could hear was “Let’s Go Dolphins” despite just turning over the ball on the fourth quarter of a blow out. It was one of my proudest moments as a Dolphins fan.

It’s easy to be a fan when you are winning. It takes something special to root for your team when you are terrible. Reshad Jones Tweeted “When you winning, everyone is your friend, it’s easy to be on the wagon, so a SPECIAL shout-out to the ride or die fans!!” and we showed everyone we are out here riding for our team!

Now, about the tailgate!

We had a blast! Our four busses made it to the tailgate by 9am so we had hours to party. DJ Tropic DJ’d the whole thing which really upped the game from the last few years. Solo D and his Miami Sports Music/ DWA crew perform. We had a catered tailgate and Pabst Blue Ribbon donated 600 beers! We had water from AqauHydrate and Sailor Jerry Rum & cider. We are so lucky to have such rad sponsors.

We raised nearly $3000 through donations and merch sales which when you add to the money we made at the #MetLifeTakeover Pre-Party was close to $5000 that we can donate charity for the weekend not including the money we made from ticket sales. Plus we had a ton of people bring toys to continue the toy drive we did from the night before. Really amazing. Thanks so much everyone!

We had some cool guests at the tailgate as well. Dolphins legend Nat Moore and CEO Tom Garfinkel showed up at the tailgate which is always awesome. They have been big supporters of what we do up here. We also had Andrew Abramson from the Palm Beach Post and Brent Grimes infamous wife Miko show up as well. Miko has come to all our tailgates and this is Andrew’s second one so I appreciate the support from them. We even had some Jets fans come by to talk some smack. But they are the guys responsible for flying banners over the Patriots practices to troll them so I guess they aren’t so terrible.

Anyway, it was a terrible game but another amazing experience. Let’s just hope next year’s Takeover isn’t on Thanksgiving so we can bring out even more Dolfans and get another win. Since the first big #MetLifeTakeover this is our only loss so I think we are doing pretty well overall. Phins up!

Now check out all the photos from the tailgate!

This past weekend was amazing. Not only did we help organize a group trip for fan clubs around the country but it was also the Dolphins annual Web Weekend a conference of Miami Dolphins web masters that I have attended 11 years in a row.  Also the Dolphins played one of their most dominant games in the history of the franchise so that was nice too.

Dolfans NYC was founded because of Web Weekend. Michelle and I both ran Dolphins fan sites and realized we both lived in NYC and started watching games together. A few years later we abandoned our former sites and started Dolfans NYC. This is the 6th time we have attended as Dolfans NYC and the weekends keep getting better.

This year we donated $5000 to the Miami Dolphins Foundation beating our $3000 donation last year after giving $1000 in both 2011 and 2012. That’s $10,000 to the Foundation thanks to you guys. To celebrate we are holding a FREE raffle this week at Slattery’s Midtown Pub for the Lions game. All you have to do is show up and you get a ticket! We should have some cool prizes including a Dolfans NYC shirt signed by AJ Duhe.

Speaking of AJ Duhe, he and Chris Chambers came and spoke to us during Web Weekend. We also had GM Dennis Hickey and CEO Tom Garfinkel in attendance as well. It was pretty great. Plus Jordan Tripp, Michael Thomas and the Finsiders joined us at a party on Friday. Coach Philbin was supposed to speak with us but unfortunately he was out of town because of the death of his father. As always Michelle stepped up and bought a condolence card that we all signed.

The last event of the weekend (aside from the game!) was the Dolphins Webby Awards which are given out to Dolphins Websites. It means a huge amount to me that we have now won the Eddie Jones Community award all three years of its existence. This club has become as much about giving back as it is about football and so that award means a ton to me. We also won the social networking award which I take a bit of pride in considering I do 90% of the social networking for Dolfans NYC. Our third award was the “Most Informative Site” award which is kinda silly considering I haven’t updated this site in a month. That being said our Twitter account and Facebook page serve as great newswires and it still means a great deal because the awards are voted on by our fellow web masters.

Anyway, check out the pictures in this Flickr gallery below. I took all the pictures with our logo watermarked on the images. The other shots are courtesy of the Miami Dolphins. See you guys Sunday!

[tylr-slidr]http://www.flickr.com/photos/dolfansnyc/sets/72157648718752277/[/tylr-slidr]

By the middle of the third quarter of Sunday’s game, MetLife Stadium was half-empty, as thousands of dejected Jets fans filed for the exits. By the the time the fourth quarter started and the Dolphins held a comfortable 20-3 lead, Sections 322 and 323 — along with several hundred aqua-and-orange-clad fans scattered around the stadium — were the only ones left clapping in the stands. 760 DolfansNYC members, plus a few more who migrated to join us, cheered for every first down, sang the fight song after every touchdown (even one that was ultimately called back) and made sure to let the Jets know #MetLifeTakeover was in full effect.

Prior to and especially following the game — along with the support of thousands of fans across the country — dozens of past and present Dolphins stars, front office personnel and media members offered humbling shoutouts to DolfansNYC. Check out notable Tweets and images from CEO Tom Garfinkel, team legend O.J. McDuffie and current players including Brian Hartline, Jared Odrick and Mike Pouncey — all of whom heard their fans loud and clear.

If that wasn’t enough, watch Coach Joe Philbin thank the fans “up in the cheap seats” during his radio show with the Finsiders (12:35 mark in the video) and Brian Hartline point up to us after scoring his TD! (more…)

For the last ten years the Miami Dolphins have invited a group of Miami Dolphins fans who run websites down to Miami. I am one of four people who have been to all ten of them. I used to run another Dolphins website that no one ever read but somehow the Dolphins found me. We would go down every year and I just would update my site enough to keep getting invited.  Around year four I met the 2 Michelle’s, two girls from NYC who had a Dolphins blog. I started watching games with them and after Tall Michelle moved Short Michelle and I founded DolfansNYC.

Last year was a really big one for us. We donated a ton of money to the Miami Dolphins foundation and ended up winning a “Webby Award’ for best community website. We also used the opportunity to reach out to other Dolphins fan sites and raise even more money for hurricane Sandy relief efforts. It was a pretty amazing trip.

This year was even better for us. We won the community webby again and we ended up raising $3000 already this year that we donated to the Miami Dolphins Foundation. We also donated another $300 to two Dolphins Cycling Challenge riders who are doing a bike ride to raise money for the Sylvester Cancer Center at the University of Miami. We gave Joe Philbin, Sam Madison and OJ McDuffie DolfansNYC shirts and OJ told us he might wear it to our #MetLifeTakeover event on December 1st! He posted a photo of himself wearing it on Twitter too!

We also got to meet Brandon Fields and John Denny who signed some stuff for us to raffle off and we also had John Offerdahl sign some stuff too. He spoke to us and promoted his Gridiron Grill Off which you should check out if you are in South Florida. That guy is always hilarious but he had just come from a food and wine festival and had a few drinks in him and he was so so funny. All of us were dying. That guy is a legend.

The highlight of the trip for us was when we presented new CEO Tom Garfinkel our Miami Dolphins Foundation donation. He seemed genuinely moved and invited us to his suite to watch the game. We were honored and got to watch the game at the 45 yard line with free food and 2 Live Crew’s Luther Campbell sitting a few feet from us. We talked to a bunch of the Dolphins marketing staff and they had told us that they were big fans of what we were doing in NYC and we had come up in meetings. We spoke to Mr. Garfinkel a little more in detail about what we were doing as well. The whole thing was pretty amazing.

In the end the game turned out very poorly and sadly we left Miami with a bitter tastes in our mouths but looking back in a few years we won’t remember this one loss to the Bills, but we will remember the experience and how we took another step towards taking NYC back from the Jets fans! DolfansNYC over everything!

Hope to see you guys tomorrow at Slattery’s Midtown Pub to watch the Patriots game. Win or lose we will have a ton of fun and we will have new DolfansNYC hats for sale! Phins up!

Check out our photos from Web Weekend X below!

[tylr-slidr]http://www.flickr.com/photos/dolfansnyc/sets/72157636982066955/[/tylr-slidr]