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Miss school to barbecue? Man, you cannot turn that down.
McALLEN — Ribs. Chicken. Beans.
Food sizzled and cooked Tuesday at McAllen ISD’s inaugural Grill Wars, the district’s first foray into competitive barbecuing.
Teams — eight in all — showed up early, manning grills in the parking lot by the McAllen Veterans Memorial Stadium.
When the pits were lit, adult coaches stepped back. It was all on the high schoolers now.
They grilled through the morning.
By about 11, the meat — and desserts, the fourth category for competitors — was ready to be tasted and CTE Coordinator Diana Peña called for chicken entries to be presented.
“Only your best half,” she insisted through a little sound system.
The only traditional cookoff staple missing was brisket; the coaches weren’t quite ready for an overnighter.
Music played. It was sunny out and warm; the whole affair very much had an end of the school year vibe to it.
“Miss school to barbecue?” Nick Moss said. “Man, you cannot turn that down.”
Moss, with friends Tristan Keith and Joaquin Valdez, cooked on a team of football players. The boys took a decidedly laid back approach to the competition. A couple of teams had matching custom shirts; Moss and company’s uniform consisted of tank tops and a couple garish aprons.
“It turned out good,” Valdez said. “We’re about to turn in our chicken. The ribs are falling off the bone. We’ve been practicing for a couple weeks, so we get together, jump in the pool, barbecue. We call it practice, but you know, it’s not much practice, we’re just hanging out.”
Despite the casual approach, the boys took their cooking seriously Tuesday. They wound up taking home a second place plaque.
Rowe High School’s Smokin’ Arrow team proved particularly hard to beat: their chicken, ribs and dessert all placed first.
Teams included students from different high schools and different — as Peña put it — corners of the cafeteria. There were ag kids, athletes, ROTC members, health science students.
“They were such a diverse group of kids,” Peña said. “You had kids that you knew that they were barbecuing with their parents for life, and then you had kids that you know this was probably the fourth or fifth time that they barbecued. We even, because we house the regional school for the deaf, we actually had a team of two deaf members.”
According to Peña, Grill Wars sprung from a conversation between Superintendent J.A. Gonzalez and a student. Gonzalez ran through the long list of programs the district has; the kid wasn’t interested.
Gonzalez finally asked the kid what he was interested in. The answer, Peña said, was barbecue.
“What brings us all together, what do we have in common? We all love to eat,” she said.
They were such a diverse group of kids. You had kids that you knew that they were barbecuing with their parents for life, and then you had kids that you know this was probably the fourth or fifth time that they barbecued. We even, because we house the regional school for the deaf, we actually had a team of two deaf members.
The district held the cookoff the same day as Tech Wars, its popular technology based competition event.
“Next year we do want to officially join High School Barbecue Inc.,” Peña said.
Joining, Peña said, would allow grillers to compete against other districts.
As far as the district’s aware, it’s the only large district in the Rio Grande Valley offering competitive barbecuing.
Longterm, she said, the district hopes to have students competing out of town and to host competitions of their own. Ideally, other local districts will join as well.
“That is the goal,” Peña said. “The goal is to get other people involved and interested so that we can host our own regional competition, hopefully 25-26, that school year.”
Peña described the benefits of the competition as comprehensive. It teaches students very functional science and math skills, she said, along with placing an emphasis on teamwork and communication.
It’s also, Peña said, just plain fun — even to a novice.
“The only thing I knew about barbecue before helping with this competition was how to eat it. That’s all I knew,” she said. “But to see the camaraderie and how it did bring so much closeness within the entire district, I think it was needed.”
To see more, view Monitor photojournalist Joel Martinez’s full photo gallery here:
