Faith Works 1-18-20
Jeff Gill
What Joe's Thank You Meant To Me
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My first two years in college, I worked in residence hall food service.
I wore the mustard colored jacket, the "smock" which only the managers called it. They were industrially washed and you got one clean smock per week unless you had more than four shifts in the dorm cafeteria. They were pretty nasty after one shift, especially if you were on dish room duty, "Hobie's Helpers" after the giant Hobart dish machine in the back. But front line or roving could get messy in a hurry, shifting trays to the warming stations up from the kitchens, pulling empties that of course never quite were empty, filling ice cream machines, all the usual joys of food service in cafeteria style set-ups.
The coveted spot in Cary Quadrangle was to get tapped for training table, over in East Hall, for the football and basketball teams. Training table meant a number of things. One, you got fresh smocks every shift, and you could count on finding one that fit -- there were plenty. Two, the food was better. Look, I worked our dorm cafeteria, and I worked catering, and I worked training table. The difference was obvious. We didn't get dog food, but training table got quality. And third, once the players were through, you ate your fill.
So if you could line up your shifts right for post-practice slots, the goal was to be in the line of fire for the finger of selection to get sent over to work training table. It was less messy, a shorter if more intense shift for the same hours paid, and you got more and better food. Everyone wanted it, and it was a reward of sorts to get it, and keep getting tapped.
The players and coaches, however, did not see you. I mean, they could have, in theory, but they didn't. We were invisible. And that's how it was. Back in the dorm, we'd see friends and roommates and banter across the steam tables or chat out on the cafeteria floor, wiping tables or emptying trash -- on training table, we were furniture. Nobody that I recall across two years made any conversation with us, and I don't recall anyone telling us not to talk to the players, it just didn't happen. They talked to each other, and after the players went through the coaching staff came through in a big intense clot of polo shirted men talking with great energy to each other about the blocking and tackling and drills and such, but they didn't talk to us, and for the most part they didn't make eye contact.
There was a guy on the team who went to my high school, a couple years ahead of me, and he would nod, and once did pause and ask me something about back home, but it was quiet and kind of furtive. And hey, we weren't friends, it was cool that he acknowledged my existence at all. Other noticed and said "hey, he talked to you" and I explained why -- mystery solved.
That was training table, and it was what it was. The football program in the fall and the basketball team on their heels (smaller group, fewer of us needed to staff it, less often an experience for me) had their needs, and we all were pretty matter of fact about how they worked more, ran more, lifted more, and they needed calories to burn they wouldn't have gotten in the regular cafeteria line. We got to gather in a little excess of our own in their wake, and it was our "brush with greatness."
I'd almost forgotten those days until Monday night, when Joe Burrow in thanking his teammates, the coaching staff, and everyone else who helped make the LSU program great started getting specific beyond "teammates, coaches, family, & friends" which is usually where it stops. He went on to name trainers, managers (I was once one of them, too), team doctors, and he said the words "dining hall staff" on top of thanking the chefs . . . which meant he was specifically trying to recall and appreciate the folks in the mustard color jackets.
I don't know if that's the color they wear at LSU. Doesn't matter. And it was forty-plus years ago I last handed a plate of steak and fries across a stainless steel counter to a student-athlete. But I felt the appreciation from Joe Burrow, from a QB to the people on the serving line, as a personal gift. That was a class moment from a class act. In any case, he's made a fan for life of me. I saw him play on a cold night in Athens as he led his team to pound the Granville Blue Aces in a playoff game six years ago, and caught others saying "that kid goes to Columbus next year, and we're going to hear great things from him" as he showed the kind of passing then he's still doing today. Well, I heard great things from him Monday night, and I thank him for that kindly attention to us dining hall staff. It's truly appreciated in return.
Jeff Gill is a writer, storyteller, and pastor in Licking County; he's got a few other food service stories to tell, not all quite as uplifting but all educational. Tell him what you've learned from customer service at knapsack77@gmail.com, or follow @Knapsack on Twitter.
