Traveling Texas produces its own joys. In the past couple of weeks I’ve been through Wichita Falls, Amarillo, Dalhart, Eastland, Weatherford, Abilene and Lubbock, and a couple score of towns in between.
I loved this headline last week in Texas Tech’s newspaper, The Daily Toreador: “Meat Team wins national championship.”
Who knew there is intercollegiate competition in meat judging? Why isn’t this on ABC or ESPN?
Humor aside, in beef states such skills are critical. Since I love a good steak more than the average person — and I love a good roast beef at least as well — this is the sort of competition I would probably take some interest in, were it covered in daily media outside the affected universities. The team from Tech deserves wider recognition, it seems to me, and I wish Texas newspapers like the Dallas Morning News and Houston Chronicle would give regular coverage to such achievements — not to mention the Lubbock Avalanche-Journal (is that a great name for daily newspaper, or what?)
The competition was held at the 60th annual Reciprocal Meats Conference, at South Dakota State University. Tech’s winning team had to beat another Tech team to get to the championship round, and there they faced another Texas team from Angelo State University in San Angelo (I haven’t made it there yet, this year).
Tech’s two three-person teams began the competition strong, neither losing a round until they faced each other. The team of Megan Mitchell, Travis Chapin and Austin Voyles came out on top, with O’Quinn, Landi Woolley and Matt Sellers falling into the consolation bracket. Because it was a double-elimination competition, each team had to lose twice to be out of the contest.
The Mitchell, Chapin and Voyles team lost one of their rounds later, leaving both teams in the consolation bracket. Winning their way through the consolation bracket, the two teams eventually faced each other once again, and this time O’Quinn, Woolley and Sellers won. They ended up competing against Angelo State University in the finals and emerged victorious.
“It wasn’t really like two teams,” O’Quinn said. “It wasn’t like one Tech team won and the other Tech team lost. It’s just a matter of formality. If all six of us could have been on one team, we would have. We consider ourselves all one team. The Tech team won.”
Rogers noted that combined the teams only lost three rounds.
“Two of our losses were to our own team,” she said. “It really was a group win.”
It was the third national championship for Tech in the competition in the past six years.
Don’t laugh. Does your university even have a meat judging team?
And while in Lubbock, I had a great chicken-fried steak at River Smith’s. Eat the local fruits, I always say.
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