Football teams fueled by local effort

An army, they say, travels on its stomach. The same might also be said of a high school football team.

Coaches like their players to be hungry emotionally, but not literally. And so most schools provide a pre-game meal for their helmeted heroes before they go into battle.

This is not a small thing. The average high school football squad ranges from 40 to 60 players. Then, there’s the junior varsity and the cheerleaders, all of them at an age when their appetites probably are at a lifelong peak.

“We try to feed them a lot of pasta, things heavy in carbohydrates,” said E.C. Glass coach Richard Trent. “On Thursday nights, the JV team eats in the cafeteria, and then we feed the varsity on Friday.”

This season, however, a stagnant economy made it more difficult to come up with enough food. That’s where the Fellowship of Christian Athletes came in.

“We became aware that two local high school football teams, Heritage and E.C. Glass, were having difficulty providing pre-game meals for their teams before home games,” said Tim Hill, area director for FCA. “Although FCA did not have the resources to provide the meals, we began spreading the word to local churches and businesses, and within a week meals had been organized for all 10 home games.”

As a former high school football player in Oklahoma City, Hill knows the value of eating well on game day.

“Those meals are still good memories for me,” he said.

These days, though, high school athletes have grown. A lot. E.C. Glass center Saul Hicks, for instance, weighs in at 324 pounds, and almost every local team has linemen close to that size.

We’re talking about young men who could make an all-you-can-eat restaurant owner rush for the “Closed” sign if he saw them approaching his front door.

Unless he’s Reggie McGee, who runs an Outback restaurant in Woodbridge. McGee actually closes his establishment for several hours on late Friday afternoons so the Gar-Field High School team can chow down.

“We know most of the team by first name,” McGee told the Web site NovaNow. “It’s like we’re all just hanging out. We talk about last week’s game, this week’s game.”

Times are hard all over, however, and Lynchburg isn’t the only place where pre-game football meals are in danger of becoming leaner. A farmer in Commerce, Ga., donated a cow to the players at East Jackson High School, and parents all over America have moved into the breach to provide potluck meals.

Here, said Hill, “Eight different churches and a half-dozen restaurants stepped up. One restaurant donated food, while several others sold meals at cost. The churches either purchased meals or had volunteers cook for the teams.”

Local churches involved in the effort include West Lynchburg Baptist, Rivermont Evangelical Presbyterian, Lynchburg Church of the Nazarene, Heritage Baptist, Living Word Baptist, Beulah Baptist and two different Sunday school classes at Thomas Road Baptist Church. Quizno’s, La Villa Da Toto, Milano’s, Dickey’s BBQ, and Vito’s Pizza also provided food.

A common thread emerges — Italian food, served by Baptists.

“We just make sure not to let them eat too much,” said Trent.