Florida | Field 2 Field

February 4, 2021February 4, 2021

Chicken Wings and the Super Bowl – we love them both

Chicken wings and the Super Bowl go together like Abbot and Costello, socks and shoes, and w(h)ine and cheese (that last one is mostly for Packer fans – but I digress). The National Chicken Council says when Americans get together to watch the Tampa Bay Buccaneers play the Kansas City Chiefs on Sunday, February 7, a lot of us will chow down on chicken wings. The good news is there will be plenty of wings available for everyone.

Tom Super is the Senior Vice President of Communications for the NCC, a 16-year-veteran of the position. He says America’s obsession with chicken wings and the Super Bowl has grown a lot in recent years. They are projecting Americans will scarf down a record 1.42 billion chicken wings to celebrate this year’s Big Game.

“That’s up two percent from last year,” he says, “and that’s despite the complications brought on by COVID-19. When we put together our recent chicken wing report for the Super Bowl, I thought for sure we’d see a decline in the number of wings Americans will eat.

“COVID has been very hard on restaurants,” Super said. “When talking to folks in the industry, when looking at the demand numbers, and when looking at the price of wings and all the other factors involved in consumption, they’ve never been a hotter product.”

Chicken wings had an advantage over a lot of other foods served at your local restaurants. Super points out that restaurants like wing joints and pizza places were built around takeout and delivery. When indoor dining was limited or shut down, those places didn’t have to change their business model as much as other establishments. They kept right on going with carryout and delivery orders while other restaurants completely shut down.

“Wings travel well, and they hold up during delivery conditions,” he said. “They also align with consumer desires for comfort food during COVID-19.”

Chicken farmers did a great job maintaining their production through 2020, and Super says there wasn’t much of a production drop-off compared to the previous year. There should be an adequate supply level to accommodate Super Bowl fans across the country.

So, let’s put some perspective on how many chicken wings make up that estimated 1.42 billion wings that we’ll eat on Super Bowl Sunday. In simple terms, that’s a lot of chicken.

“If you were to line them up end-to-end, it would circle the entire circumference of the Earth three times,” Super says. “If you laid them end-to-end from Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City to Raymond James Stadium in Tampa, Florida, they’d stretch back-and-forth 19 times.

“Let’s look at it another way,” he added. “Let’s assume that Kansas City Chiefs coach Andy Reid could eat three wings in a minute – and yes, the actual number is probably higher – but if he ate three every minute, it would take him more than 900 years to eat 1.42 billion chicken wings.”

Some Americans are bone-in chicken wing eaters, while others prefer the boneless wings. What type of wings do the majority of football fans prefer?

America’s favorite sauce for our wings might not be what you think it is.

“We should let people know that there will not be a shortage of wings this year,” Super said. “Restaurants, food service, and retailers started pulling wings out of cold storage as far back as November to prepare for the big day.”

If there is a rush on chicken wings in the days and hours before Super Bowl Sunday, Super has this bit of advice: “Don’t wait till the last second,” he says. “That’s my advice.”

December 19, 2019December 19, 2019

Running helps Nebraska Rancher beat the odds

Running and track are helping Nebraska rancher Kevan Hueftle of Eustice to live the kind of story that few people get to tell. He rose from the depths of a 2005 hunting accident that cost him his foot, as well as the resulting depression and subsequent battle with alcohol to become a champion Paralympic runner after recently competing.

“I was shot in the left foot during a hunting accident,” he recalled. “Six months later, I decided to amputate it right above the ankle. I was only 20 years old at the time. I was a successful track athlete and actually tried to go and run again at the University of Nebraska-Kearney. However, I hadn’t finished healing yet.”

In his words, Hueftle said he was “taking pills to get through the day” and “drinking more and more” at that time. He transferred out of UNK and went to Southeast Community College in Beatrice to get his Ag Degree in 2009. Between 2007 and 2015, Hueftle called himself a “full-blown alcoholic.” On August 7, 2015, he took control of his life and gave up alcohol. “I hit my four-year sobriety mark on August 7 of this year,” he said proudly.

In January of 2017, he started looking back at his track career, remembering how fast he could run in his prime. “I started taking a look at some of the Paralympic times,” he recalled. “I went to a prosthetic maker in Kearney and switched the old prosthetic leg over to a new one. Then, I started running again.

“My times were pretty crappy back then,” Hueftle said. “They were good when you remember I had just started running for the first time in fifteen years. As I got further into training, I went to a prosthetist in Washington that put me on a brand-new leg. I was training every single day and my times kept getting faster. Two-and-a-half years of training led to me getting a bid to the Para Pan-American Games in Peru, which were held only a month ago.”

He said it was a very emotional experience when he finally received his Team USA gear and became a part of the organization. While traveling to Peru he didn’t carry a lot of expectations with him. After all, Hueftle had never traveled internationally before. He was also running while being a full-time rancher with a couple of “side-businesses.” Plus, Hueftle was a 34-year-old runner competing against kids in their 20s.

“I think the cards were stacked against me,” he recalled. “However, I ended up placing second in the 200-Meter Dash and won the 100-Meter Dash. That was a great feeling. I was actually pretty mad at myself after the 200 because I thought I should have won it. I just didn’t quite run my best 200 of the year though.

“I wasn’t a 100 or 200 runner in college during my track days,” Hueftle said. “I was more of a 400 and 800M runner, which is a completely different style of running than the sprints. I had to learn some new running techniques and (starting) blockwork.”

Hueftle has a running coach who lives in Florida. His coach came to watch him run in Peru and it was actually the first time the two had been face-to-face. “I had five days on the track with him, which was amazing,” he said. “And having the national anthem played because you won a race was even more amazing. It was all Team USA members on the podium in first, second, and third, in both events.”

Hueftle met his coach during a trip to Arizona for competition. He does his training through videos and workouts that are sent from Florida. “My coach also works with Team USA,” he said. “He sought me out after the meet in Arizona and told me I had the skills and the mindset to do well in the competitions. I just didn’t quite have the running technique yet.”

With his win at the Para Pan-American Games in Peru, Hueftle is off to Dubai and running in the World Championship Meet at the end of the month. He leaves on October 31 for 17 days in Dubai. He has a lot of training to do between now and then, but Hueftle’s workouts can be difficult to fit into his hectic personal and professional schedule.

“I usually try to work out at 5 am,” he said, “but if that doesn’t work out, I usually head up to the high school in the evenings with my kids to do my running. I can also leave Eustice to drive to Cozad and use their track but that takes 1.5 hours or longer. If that doesn’t work out, I’ve trained in cornfields or ran on highways. With the caliber of athletes I’m trying to compete against, I can’t skip workouts. The ones that have faster times than I do are sponsored athletes, so training is their full-time job.”

He’s looking forward to being able to reflect on his accomplishments when his athletic career comes to a close. “Peru was nothing but a business trip for me,” he said. “The best thing about it was Peru is on central time, so I got to keep myself on a routine. When I’m done running, I think I’ll have more time to enjoy it.”

March 29, 2019March 29, 2019

Minnesota-Crookston baseball – “Gritty, not pretty”

By Chad Smith

The University of Minnesota-Crookston baseball team describes itself as “gritty, not pretty.” Whatever they’d like to call themselves, it’s working. In spite of the challenges that come with a small-college program, the Golden Eagles won 14 of their first 22 games. Eagles head coach Steven Gust said they’re playing some pretty good baseball in spite of fielding a young roster this spring.

“We’re getting the job done,” he said with a smile visible through the phone. “it’s been a bit of a surprise because we lost key contributors from last year’s team. However, we’re finding ways to win in spite of that.

Steven Gust is the head coach of the University of Minnesota-Crookston baseball team. (Photo from goldeneaglesports.com)

“We aren’t going to overpower people on the mound this season,” he said. “Our best kid from last year, Zach Seipel, got drafted by the Atlanta Braves. That’s good news but he was only a junior, so we did expect him back this year. The kids we do have back are doing a good job of filling the strike zone, mixing their speeds, and are attacking hitters.”

The first player drafted

Getting a player drafted into Major League Baseball is a feather in the cap of any program. However, it’s an even bigger feather for a small school like Minnesota-Crookston because he was the first Golden Eagle ever picked in the MLB draft. What makes it an even better story is the young man didn’t originally come in to pitch for the Golden Eagles.

“I saw him as a catcher in legion baseball,” Gust recalled. “I thought he had a pretty decent arm behind the plate. I wasn’t sure about his hitting, but good defensive catchers can be hard to find. It was one of my first years coaching and our pitching was thin. We needed someone to pitch the end of a scrimmage and he volunteered after pitching just nine total innings in high school.”

Gust said, “The ball jumped out of Zach’s hand and he was around the zone. After that, we told him to sell his catcher’s glove and he became our closer. He left here throwing a 93-94 mile-per-hour fastball. He’s a great kid and he’s only going to get better as a player.”

The University of Minnesota-Crookston was understandably excited when Zach Seipel became the first Golden Eagle drafted by a Major League Baseball team. He went to the Atlanta Braves in the 27th round and head coach Steven Gust said he expects Zach to do well and move up the chain. (Photo from goldeneaglesports.com)

Getting a player drafted is big milestone considering that before Gust and the current staff arrived, the Golden Eagles had won just two of their previous 100 games. Literally, the team was 2 and 98 before Gust showed up.

Building a program

“We were fortunate to add some good players to some really good-character kids that were already here,” Gust said, “and they all bought in right away. There are so many pieces to the puzzle when you’re trying to build a program like Minnesota-Crookston.

“The pieces include working on facilities and trying to get the highest quality you can,” he added. “You have to find good assistant coaches that don’t mind working for literally nothing other than their passion for the game. We also don’t have a lot of scholarships to offer, so that’s not a strength either.”

When Gust took over the program, there were 18 Golden Eagles on the roster. Now, in spite of some limitations that come with smaller-school athletics, they currently have 46 players on the roster. They recruit primarily in Minnesota and North Dakota. They’ll include a few kids out of Wisconsin, Iowa, and South Dakota as well.

“The majority of our kids come in from our backyard,” he said. “We’ve created some excitement in the area by bringing in a lot of familiar players. The attendance and support from the community have been great. We’re just trying to do the little things that maybe one day will allow us to start thinking about winning a championship.

“We don’t have any 5-tool recruits,” Gust added. “We’re getting better players who happen to be good students as well. Our team GPA in the fall was 3.3, which is almost unheard of. We’re looking for guys who might have a little chip on the shoulder because they weren’t recruited by some of the bigger schools. They’ll have a passion for what they’re doing out there on the field.”

Gust added, “There’s no way I could run a program if I didn’t have a great group of people around me.”

Weather is a challenge

Like most schools in the north, the weather is always a challenge to deal with. Gust said one of the biggest goals for all the Crookston programs is to get a covered practice facility. What really hurts the team is not being able to get outside much early in the season to get some much-needed practice in. Gust says, “I think that’s coming here at Minnesota-Crookston, it’s just a matter of when.”

The Eagles team is basically brand-new this season. They graduated a lot of seniors from last spring’s squad. Last year, Crookston won 24 baseball games, but Gust said they were “disappointed” because they thought they were headed back to the postseason tournament. However, it didn’t happen.

“We have several junior college players on the roster this spring,” Gust said. “Sometimes, it’s hard for Junior College players to buy in when they come to a four-year school. However, our guys seem to have bought in right away. We’ve found ways to get things done so far in spite of facing some really good pitching in the first three weeks of the conference season.”

NSIC a solid conference

From top-to-bottom, the Northern Sun Intercollegiate Conference is one of the best Division Two conferences in the country. For example, they have the defending national champion Augustana (Sioux Falls, SD) Vikings as a member of the conference.

“Minnesota-State Mankato is always good,” Gust said. “Concordia-St. Paul has some really solid arms this season. St. Cloud State might be the team to beat. Even the teams that have been on the bottom over the past few years have gotten better. Teams like the University of Mary (Bismarck, ND) and Minot State (Minot, North Dakota) are among the teams taking steps forward.”

Even before they got going in their conference schedule, Crookston headed south to play some very good non-conference squads. They started off their season with perennial power Central Missouri State. Gust said people told him he was crazy to play them. However, he did see some good things in spite of losing to CMS.

“I thought a lot of good things came out of playing tough competition like that,” he said. “I saw signs that we could be a pretty good team. We also went down to Florida to play some really tough teams too. I think our non-conference schedule really prepared us well to do some good things in the conference.”