Players’ parents usually organize the meals and sometimes cook them, although some local restaurateurs join in too. Springfield Athletic Director Mark Stoll said his team enjoys two pregame meals a week: Thursday evening dinners organized by local churches as well as Friday pregame meals served by the parents.
Whatever the case, it can take some effort and money to fill the bellies of a bunch of active, hungry high school boys.
They’re doing some particularly serious eating over at Trotwood-Madison, where the scheduling of the pregame meal on Thursday nights means team members can chow down all they want.
For a recent Thursday meal, Peter Simmons, owner of Evan’s Café and Erica’s Catering in Dayton, fixed Swedish meatballs, rice pilaf, broccoli with cheese sauce, bread and butter, cake and punch – and he brought enough for second helpings.
His grocery list for the meal included 30 pounds of ground beef, 20 pounds of rice, 18 pounds of broccoli and 12 loaves of bread.
And he totes in a meal like this every week.
Neither he nor the pregame meal coordinator, Ernestine Grigsby, has kids on the team; they do it as a labor of love.
“I live in Trotwood, and both of my kids (Evan and Erica) graduated from Trotwood, so this is my way to give back,” Simmons said.
Grigsby works in the elementary cafeteria by day. She has a nephew on the team, but both of her sons have already graduated from Trotwood-Madison.
Most of the Trotwood players’ parents work and don’t have time to fix elaborate team meals, Grigsby said. The parents volunteer as servers every week, but Simmons’ contribution means they don’t have to worry about the food itself.
Meanwhile, Bishop Fenwick High School in Franklin handles the gargantuan task of feeding a football team by paring it down to the simplest possible method: same menu every week, same time of day, same number of parents as volunteer servers, food that requires little to no prep.
At the Catholic school, the boys go straight from Friday classes to a 3:20 p.m. Mass. By 3:50 p.m., they’re filing into the cafeteria for turkey subs, fresh fruit, granola bars and Gatorade before suiting up. Six families bring and serve the food each week. The only occasional variation: Sometimes there’s ham on the subs in place of turkey.
The players don’t pig out as adolescent boys are sometimes wont to do. Given that it’s game night, they’re limited to one sub each, although “most of them would eat three” if they were allowed, joked Joe Stomps, the meal coordinator.
But Bishop Fenwick players do get an opportunity for a bigger feed three times per season, when local Applebee’s or Olive Garden restaurants donate Thursday evening pasta meals.
In Oakwood, there’s sort of a hybrid approach to the pregame meal. Both the menu and the parent involvement level vary. Some weeks the main course is restaurant food, other weeks it’s homemade by parents.
In deciding what to serve, coordinator Paula Stoecklein, mother of senior lineman Daniel Stoecklein, researched what the boys should eat three hours before a game. She discovered that while they should avoid high-fat foods like cream sauces, they should still eat a lot of carbohydrates.
Often, Oakwood’s pregame meal is based around pasta, although there are always plenty of fresh fruits and vegetables. Main courses thus far this season have included meat ziti from Belmont Catering, Chick-fil-A sandwiches, Donato’s pizza, homemade chicken-and-noodles and homemade barbacoa, a barbecued meat dish.
How to pay for the meals is another issue that crops up quickly when you’re talking about feeding dozens of adolescent boys.
Given that Bishop Fenwick is funded by tuition, there’s not a lot of money in the school budget for extras, explained Melissa Harper, mom of sophomore football player Trey Harper. So the parents of the 70-some football players donate the food. For Harper’s recent turn, she asked a friend who owns a Tim Horton’s franchise to donate subs. Also, some parents buy subs from other restaurants or make them at home.
Back at Trotwood, proceeds from the 50-50 raffle at home games go toward offsetting some of the meal costs, but the raffle doesn’t always amount to much. Simmons has no problem with that.
“You don’t necessarily take every job to make a profit,” Simmons said. “They don’t have big boosters and they don’t have a lot of money flowing around out there in Trotwood. And some of those boys, you don’t know when they had their last meal.”
In Oakwood, costs are held down a bit by the smaller size of the team – 44 players. And the team tries to cover only the cost of the main course through car washes and a 50-50 raffle; parents donate all the side dishes.
Loretta Kadash, mom of players Michael and Andrew Kadash, handles the meal finances and says another thing that keeps costs down is the timing of the meal.
“Some boys don’t eat much because it’s game night,” she said, noting her sons are among the light eaters.
“The coaches can eat quite a lot, though,” Stoecklein added, laughing.
So why go to all the trouble? Wouldn’t it be simpler if parents just packed their players a sack lunch to eat after school?
That’s not really the point, said Joe Stomps, who coordinates Bishop Fenwick’s meals.
“It’s just fun for the kids to all get together, and this way we can make sure they eat,” he said.
Controlling the teams’ menus can have other payoffs, too.
The Trotwood team’s favorite dish every year, Grigsby said, is Simmons’ homemade chicken alfredo – and she’s not above using it as a bribe.
A couple unexpected losses early on prompted her to tell this year’s team, “You’re not gonna get the chicken alfredo until you show us something.”
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