August 30, 2015

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Sports August 30, 2015

College Sports Scandals Loom Over The Launch Of Football Season

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Mike Pesca of Slate’s podcast The Gist helps NPR’s Rachel Martin assess the damage to college football inflicted by a string of scandals at universities around the country.

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RACHEL MARTIN, HOST:

It is time now for sports. And while college football players are focusing on the upcoming season, there is a cloud over some college football programs. A player at Baylor University, who was convicted of sexual assault, had apparently been allowed to transfer from Boise State despite a history of violent behavior. And the athletic department at Auburn University and coaches at Virginia Tech are in hot water. Mike Pesca is here to talk about what’s going on.

Hey, Mike.

MIKE PESCA, BYLINE: Hello.

MARTIN: Let’s start with Auburn. Football officials are apparently upset because the school wants to end a particular degree program. Do tell.

PESCA: Public administration – not that popular among Auburn’s undergrads, one percent of the students enroll. But among football players, it’s more than 50 percent. So this is a major that was considered to be on the chopping block. Schools don’t have unlimited funds. And an internal review says that the major does not quote, “contribute a great deal to the department,” meaning the political science department’s education mission.

But as I said, it’s a great major for these football players. And the athletic department said, if the major’s eliminated, the success rate for our student athletes will likely decline. So let us say pressure was brought to bear or at least a proposal from the football team and the athletic department will give you the funds to keep the program going. The program has been kept going. I have to credit The Wall Street Journal for a lot of this reporting. But it just gets to the tension between football and academics and what’s driving what. We also saw Rutgers’ head coach getting in touch with a 5,000 dollar adjunct professor saying, hey could we do anything to boost this players grades? It happens a lot.

MARTIN: So also Virginia Tech apparently is fining athletes if they don’t go to practice? I mean, that’s crazy.

PESCA: Yeah, so well, there is this proposal and it was reported on and then the coach in Cincinnati said, hey, good idea. So you have to realize student athletes don’t get paid. There is a stipend, newly instituted this year, of about 3,000 dollars. To make up the gap between what scholarships are and how much the cost is. So for the first time ever, student athletes – football players, say – can put a few thousand dollars towards buying a pizza, let’s say, but not if you, say, miss breakfast at VA Tech because that’s a $10 fine. If you miss a treatment, it’s a $20 fine. An unsportsmanlike conduct in a game is a $100 fine. I sometimes – I hope not glibly call it indentured servitude, but this is exactly what happened during the days of indentured servitude. There were fines and fees for just going about your life. This is likely a NCAA violation. It looks like Virginia Tech is backing off that plan.

MARTIN: OK, real quick – isolated incidents, bigger problems?

PESCA: That’s the question. And we’ve seen this behavior in, say, the NFL. I always say no one’s proved that it’s greater in the NFL than in society at large. But college football has a bit of a rot, and maybe I’m being kind by saying a bit. They make so many – millions of dollars off these players, who are not paid. You’re just going to see twisting themselves in knots to qualify them academically or try to get money however they can. It’s systemic I think.

MARTIN: NPR’s – The Slate’s Mike Pesca. Thanks, Mike.

PESCA: You’re welcome.

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Business August 30, 2015

The Bloody Mary Meat Straw: An All-American Story

This Bloody Mary served at the Nationals Park in D.C. came with a meat straw, which infuses each sip with an umami flavor. Ben Hirko first came up with the concept while tending bar one snowy night in 2009. The straws have become a hit.
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This Bloody Mary served at the Nationals Park in D.C. came with a meat straw, which infuses each sip with an umami flavor. Ben Hirko first came up with the concept while tending bar one snowy night in 2009. The straws have become a hit. Tamara Keith/NPR hide caption

itoggle caption Tamara Keith/NPR

This is a story of American ingenuity and entrepreneurship. It is the story of the meat straw. Yes, you read that right.

“It is a straw made out of pork,” explains Ben Hirko of Coralville, Iowa, the man behind Benny’s Original Meat Straws.

It’s a half-inch in diameter, the same length as a standard plastic straw. And it has a hole running down the middle of it, through which you’re meant to slurp up Bloody Marys.

Like many good stories, this one involves a snowstorm — and maybe one beer too many. Back in February 2009, Hirko was tending bar, and there was only one couple there to drink, so as the snow piled up outside, he poured himself a beer. The bar didn’t serve food, but the couple brought a bunch of meat sticks to snack on.

“After a few beers, I reached over and grabbed one of the snack sticks,” says Hirko. “And I was like, ‘You know, this would make an amazing Bloody Mary garnish.’ It just had great flavor.”

But there was a problem: Only the bottom of the meat stick was soaking up the spicy tomato juice and vodka.

“And so I grabbed a plastic straw out of one of the dispensers, and I grabbed a new stick from them. And I literally started digging a hole in it and eating the meat out of it until I got all the way through,” says Hirko, recounting the moment his meat straw concept was born.

And right there, Hirko had created his first prototype.

“I held it up to the guy that was there,” Hirko says. “And I looked him in the eye, right through the hole, and I said, ‘That’s awesome.’ And he looked at me and said, ‘Yes, it is.’ “

Now, if you are thinking, “Does America really need meat straws?,” you’re not alone. Even Hirko’s father had doubts. “He didn’t really say it, but he looked at me like, ‘You know you have a family to support now, don’t you?’ ” Hirko recalls.

But it turns out, Bloody Mary meat straws actually can support a family. For Hirko, the big break came when he got a call from the Detroit Lions football team, which serves a Hail Mary Bloody Mary drink.

“We serve it in a plastic mason jar,” says Joe Nader, executive chef for Levy Restaurants at Ford Field, home of the Detroit Lions. He oversees food service at the stadium. “So it’s a pretty good-sized portion, and it’s got a bunch of other garnish with it. The meat straw is kind of the piece de resistance.”

Last year, the Lions sold 30,000 Bloody Marys with meat straw garnishes. The meat straws are also sold in grocery stores and bars, and on the Benny’s website.

And the hankering for meat straws has spread. At a recent Washington National’s baseball game in D.C., meat straws were prominently displayed at a “make-your-own-Bloody-Mary” bar in one of the luxury lounges.

Jonathan Stahl, executive director of ballpark operations and fan experience for the Nationals, demonstrates a meat straw in action, using it to stir horseradish into the Bloody Mary mix.

“As you can see, it comes straight through the meat straw,” says Stahl, taking a gulp to demonstrate. “There you go.”

The straw infuses each sip with a hint of meaty, umami flavor. And by the time imbibers have finished guzzling the drink, the meat straw is well-soaked in Bloody Mary and ready for snacking. Stahl says they’ve been a hit.

“We couldn’t get them one time, and so people were asking where the meat straws were,” says Stahl. “We never have a Bloody Mary bar unless we have the meat straws available now.”

Nat’s fan Bill Foster sits on a patio overlooking the ballpark, testing out a meat straw Bloody Mary. He isn’t convinced this product is really answering a great need.

“Sometimes, as Steve Jobs pointed out, we don’t know what we needed until he put it together, so maybe enough people will think we need this,” says Foster. “I don’t know. I doubt if I’ll be in that crew, but maybe others will.”

The Steve Jobs of meat straws, Ben Hirko, recently sold his company to a larger firm with better distribution channels, but he stayed on. So now he can spend all his time convincing people that meat straws are the answer to a problem they didn’t know they had.

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