By Roy M. Wallack
It doesn’t sound like a sport. But when you listen to competitive eaters talk training, game strategy, and the sheer mechanics of forcing ridiculous quantities of food into their bodies in a ridiculously short period of time (one-ounce macaroni and cheese balls are on the menu at Wave House on Saturday from 5 to 5:45 p.m.), you can’t help but admire these dedicated eating athletes, who prepare as seriously for their sport as NASA scientists planning the first manned landing on Mars.
Take the #3 seeded eater, Rich “Big Rig” Brooking, of Piedmont Community College in Charlotte, North Carolina, a 6-foot, 230-pound biology/environmental studies major with an A- GPA who is ranked 19th in the country at the tender age of 18. A phenom in a sport once dominated by men in their 30s, Big Rig is “the most naturally talented power-eater that I have ever seen,” says former national champion Arnie Chapman, the Chairman and self-described “Chief Lunatic” of All Pro Eating Promotions, a.k.a. the Association of Competitive Eating, which organizes 20 to 25 events each year in promotion-hungry restaurants around the country.
“I always had the talent,” says Big Rig. “I knew it one day at 15, when I ate six pieces of pizza to my friend’s two. In the summer of 2007, my mom saw an ad in the paper: “Win $500 at Backyard Burger. I ate five burgers in seven minutes, and beat 23 older guys. I had to lie about my age to get in.”
His win made him a celebrity at Myers Park High School in Charlotte (“it was a nice ice breaker with women,” he admits), but he had to face reality at another contest two months later. “I ate seven burgers in seven minutes — but the winner, and old pro named Gentleman Joe Manicetti, ate seven in 3-1/2 minutes,” he says. “I took 4th. It was a wake-up call. I had to start training, using my scientific mind.”
Today, Big Rig observes a multi-prong appetite-enhancing strategy that includes running, yogurt, belching, gum, and meditation.
“My stomach shrinks if I don’t eat,” he explains. “So the day of a competition, I run one or two miles—it really whips up my hunger. Then I grab an 8-ounce strawberry-banana yogurt, either Yoplait or soy. The L.Casin cultures really rev up my digestive system, although I‘m not sure how or why it works. There’s more: I stretch my stomach by over-inhaling air and don’t stop until it feels like it’s going to rip; then I belch and do it all over again. Finally, I chew gum to get my jaw muscles working. By game time, I’m ready.”
Meditation, another major component of Big Rig’s method, “helps me do everything better—not just eat five pounds of chicken wings,” he says. “It’s pyschosymetics; the mind and body are connected. You don’t want the flood the sympathetic nervous system.”
Highly motivated, Big Rig desperately seeks the $1000 first prize, which would help him pay for a new laptop computer and pay his entry fees to Warren Wilson College near Ashville, where he plans to enroll in next fall.
In San Diego, Big Rig could be taken to school by the #2-ranked eater, Kevin “The Lion” Kordalski, 20, a communications major from the College at Wooster, an hour from Cleveland, Ohio. Relatively unaccomplished in his high school years, the Lion first roared during Spring Break ’08, when he so impressed his friends with his prodigious eating that they searched the internet for eating contests he could enter. A year later, the Lion’s resume includes 2 pounds of brownies in 6 minutes, 13 hamburgers in 8 minutes (a breakout winning performance that put him on the map), 3 pounds of Peorgies in 3 minutes, 9 pulled-pork sandwiches in 8 minutes, and 20 sliders in 8 minutes at his first international contest in Toronto, Canada, where he took 3rd.
The secret to his success? “It’s all about rhythm,” he explains. “I begin building up my capacity by doubling and tripling my food intake several weeks before a contest. Then, on game day, I start slow and speed up. And—on yeah— I work out.”
That means running 30 minutes a day and weight lifting several times a week. That exercise obsession has given the Lion what may be the ironic distinction in the history of competitive eating: He may be the only competitive eater ever to get smaller as his food fame expands. You see, year ago, the 6-footer weighed 230. Now he’s 210.
“I have to thank my mom for that,” he says. “She came to one of my contests last year and said, ‘If this is going to continue, you are going to have to join a gym.’ I did. And I thank her every day for getting me on the right track.”
Getting on the right track later in life is the prohibitive favorite at the Alt Games, William “The Champ” Millender, 28, a 6-foot-2, 380-pounder who is working for an AA degree in liberal arts from Brooklyn’s Kingsborough Community College. Disgusted with his lack of direction as “a miserable 500-pound slacker working in a video store,” Millender did a U-turn. He lost 100 pounds walking from Boston to Pennsylvania on ABC’s “Fat March” reality weight-loss show, scored a healthier (he says) job at Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, and enrolled in college. With a PR of 50 chicken wings in five minutes and 25,000 calories worth of the Greek pasta luka made in one setting, Millender won $2000 last year in eating contests and gained his nickname, “The Champ.” He dreams of getting down to 280 pounds.
In competition, The Champ says he can eat anything that is set down before him and foresees no problem with the Mac-and-Cheese balls—“although I know that they’re the worst thing you can do to your body,” he admits. Bunking with Big Rig in San Diego gives him a mental edge, he says. “Age isn’t the advantage; experience is. And I’ve got more contests under my belt than most of them.”
Arnie Chapman, All Pro Eating’s Chief Lunatic, feels spectators at Wave House this Saturday will be in for a treat: someone who might well dominate competitive eating for years.
“There has been a youth movement the last few years,” he said. “It used to be guys in their 30s. Now, younger guys are starting to dominate the game.”
The future of competitive eating will be going mano-a-mano and mouth-to-mouth with Mac and Cheese out at Wave House. Put down your corn chips and check it out.
