Cooked for a Football Team

About a month ago, my BIL calls me up and asks if I would want to cook up a bunch of ribs for a High School football team at a camp.
Turned out the coach had decided to hold their training camp at an actual camp this year. It just so happens that this same camp is the one that the family rents out every year so, I was more than comfortable with the surroundings and already knew the best place to set up the cooker and what not. I talked about the logisitics of it with the coach and it was decided that they would take care of getting the meat. I would take care of getting everything cooked up and all they needed to cover was the cost of fuel and supplies. We figured that it would be best to do it for a dinner and then I let him know which day to do it would work best for me.
Yesterday was the big day. It ended up being a great day for a cook that, for the most part went off without a hitch. I even served up the meat exactly on the time I said I would. :shock:
Here is the cooker set up and smokin away.

The ribs with about an hour left to go.



We had to make sure that the players got their veggies as well. On went some fresh picked corn and some mixed beans straight from the garden that morning.


It was a fantastic cook and the players and coaches were super appreciative of it. The kids loved it all so much that they decided they wanted to try the BBQ Sauce on their corn as well. Next thing we knew, they had destroyed over 30 ears of corn mopped down with Cranberry BBQ Sauce. It was pretty awesome cook and they made it a blast to do. Feels pretty good to be called a rockstar and hero by a bunch of teenagers once in awhile. :laugh:

El Ropo said:

Wow! That's a heck of a rig you have there. Boatloads of cooking area must make it pretty easy

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2,592 square inches on the bottom rack and 1,584 on the top rack. Lots of realestate to work with but, to cook right with it, there is alot of magement involved. Rotating items and controlling the air flow can be a real pain at times. Still, I love it!

hamiltont said:

Well played. I'm guessing you converted a few to "real" BBQ in the process too. Cheers!!!

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Coaches wanted to do it because they figured that some of the players may not get the chance to eat like that very often or maybe have never had "real" BBQ before. I know there were quite a few that said they were some of the best ribs they ever had, if not the best. And all of their faces lit up like Christmas when we told them that they each got a half rack to themselves. Of course some wanted more and you could hear from the dining hall "Hey! You're not going to eat that? Don't throw it, I'll eat it!". In the end though, all were happy. The praise and talk in general was awesome to hear. My BIL even said, "I knew this was going to be a very cool thing to do but, I couldn't imagine the kids showing so much appreciation and thankfullness for it."

Seachaser said:

How many did you feed? Good job!

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40 players
3 Coaches
me and the BIL.

3 half racks were left. The coaches decided it was best not to tell the players there was any left over. I think they were secretly planning on eating them later that night. :laugh: