By Craig Urey
SELINSGROVE — Talent, pride, coaching and a good community are all vital ingredients in a successful high school football program.
There is another important ingredient, too: Food. And lots of it (but not too much.)
For the past two years, Selinsgrove Area High School football players have been fueling up at the Selinsgrove VFW before home games and all but the most distant away games.
Before Friday’s playoffs opener, a District 4 Class AAA semifinal against Columbia-Montour Vo-Tech, the fuel for more than 60 players and 10 coaches included 160 hamburgers and 25 dozen pierogies, with a healthy helping of bananas on the side.
Bill Wenrich, of Selinsgrove, father of Seals player Matt Wenrich, helps to organize the ad-hoc group of parents and community members.
“I just like to help out,” he said as nine volunteers worked with VFW Quartermaster Harold Aucker to prepare the food.
“I also like to think it keeps us out of trouble, but it doesn’t,” Wenrich said. “We have a lot of fun doing this.”
The menu changes weekly, but centers on Snyder County favorites like chicken and waffles and meat loaf.
Team physician David Wato also signs off on the menu to make sure nutritional and energy needs are met for the players, Wenrich said.
That is why large portions of carbohydrates accompany a main course of meat.
“It gives them long-term energy for the game,” Selinsgrove head coach Dave Hess said.
Despite the large meal, and the fact that it is being fed to a large group of large teenagers, there rarely are any problems with discipline or organization.
“It’s like clockwork,” Wenrich said. “The team arrives at 3 p.m., and are out of here by 4, and we clean up and are out of here by 4:30.”
The timing of the meal is critical, as well.
“The players are done eating by 4 p.m. and the game starts at 7,” Hess said. “That gives them plenty of time to digest their meal.”
The VFW’s Aucker said his organization provides the cooking and eating facilities free, and charge about $6 per person for the food and accessories like plates and utensils.
The Selinsgrove Football Boosters Club and Athletic Council take turns paying for the food, a bill that totals about $450 a week.
But for Aucker, a lifelong resident of Selinsgrove and former football player himself in the 1950s, it’s more about community pride than numbers.
“They lost only one game since they started eating here,” he said.
Coach Hess credits community events like the team meal as being part of the Seals’ ongoing success.
“Everybody gets credit,” he said. “The program is a part of the community. Great communities have great families, and great families give us great kids.”
The team meal factors into that sense of community, as well.
“It is very important in terms of team camaraderie,” Hess said. “Eating together helps them gel as a football team on and off the field.”
The team meal predates Hess’s tenure as coach.
“My brother played in 1968, and it was a tradition long before that,” he said. “It has never been stopped.”
Current players are not about to stop the tradition, either.
“I love the team meal,” junior left guard Logan Hetherington, 16, said as he dug into his second hamburger. “It’s a great time to bond with the team.”
The food, of course, helps with the good feelings.
“They feed us well,” Hetherington said. “There’s tons of food.”
Senior John Trego said he appreciates both the meal and the venue.
“The VFW really helps out the team by doing this,” he said. “It help gets the nerves out.”
Trego and Hetherington admitted that some meals go down easier than others.
Foods with a lot of sauce are a little iffy, they said.
“The chicken parmesan they serve is delicious,” Trego said. “But it doesn’t always stay down well.”
Opponents also factor into players’ appetites.
“I didn’t eat that much before the Berwick game,” Hetherington said of a key Oct. 6 game the Seals went on to win 34-6.
Overall, though, the players give the pregame meal thumbs-up both as a ritual and as pregame nutrition.
Trego and Hetherington voted chicken and waffles as the team favorite, although meat loaf was a close second.
“This is Snyder County,” he said. “It’s a meat-oriented place.
