Many dads in the Nike Air Monarch's and cargo jean shorts were flexing their grilling muscle yesterday over some flames, and although Memorial Day weekend may be in the rearview mirror, close your eyes and you can still smell the meat on the grill, or the smoke rolling out of the smoker.
Nearly everyone has heard of barbecue competitions among adults crazy about smoked meats, but did you know there are high school barbecue teams in Texas working to prepare the next Memorial Day pit masters?
Yes, that's a real thing, and ESPN did a piece over the weekend highlighting it.
In their piece, they feature Sean Hill, who went from coaching high school football for a decade in the Rockwall area outside of Dallas, to leading a high school barbecue team.
In just his third season coaching barbecue, he led Rockwall ISD's Dr. Gene Burton College and Career Academy the grand champion of the 2023 Texas HS BBQ State Championship earlier this month. His squad beat out nearly 100 other teams vying for the honor.
Hill, who had a passion for barbecue and had turned it into a side business to help bring in side money from teaching, has taken the lessons learned from coaching football and found unique ways to tie the two together.
Their barbecue practices have periods just like padded practices during the summer and fall, but theirs is based on the five categories that the team is judged on during competitions.
"It's broken down into the categories of chicken, brisket, ribs, beans and dessert, like you'd break down offense and defense, linemen and receivers and backs."
They also spend time working on trimming meats, seasonings, how to manage the fire, getting the flames set up, and other various areas as well.
"I miss Friday night lights," Hill shared with ESPN. "But I'd never give up Saturday morning fires."
Head here to take in the full article.
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