ST. JOSEPH -- The laughter flows freely from the kitchen inside St. Joseph-Ogden football coach Shawn Skinner's house last Wednesday evening.
For Cathie Bishop, Kandy Miller, Marti Rohl and Karen Ulbrich, the first four weeks of the high school football season are more than just what happens underneath the Friday night lights.
Sure, the four longtime friends are invested in how the SJ-O football team fares in each game the Spartans play. They've had sons suit up for the Spartans through the years. Grandsons, too.
But the smell of New York strip steaks right off the grill, a hearty batch of homemade mashed potatoes, hot garlic bread fresh out of the oven and enough sliced watermelon to feed 18 high school senior football players, not to mention pitchers of lemonade for drinks, fills the kitchen at the Skinner residence two days before SJ-O went on the road last Friday night and defeated Chillicothe IVC 42-28.
With the Spartans wrapping up practice a mile away at Dick Duval Field in St. Joseph, the women make last-minute adjustments in preparing and setting up the food that will soon fill the paper plates of hungry teenagers.
"I also broke up the ice," Ulbrich said with a straight face. "I've been the ice-breaker."
Bishop, Miller and Rohl get a good chuckle out of their friend's humor. They often do.
"We laugh so hard sometimes," Bishop said, "it's shocking how funny we can be."
The friendship benefits the four women in other, more personal ways, too.
"I'm a widow," Miller said. "Marti is a widow. Cathie is a widow. Karen is a widow. We have been friends for a long time and having lost our partners, it's been especially special to have these friends and their support."
So Wednesday evenings in the month of September are opportunities for Bishop, Miller, Rohl and Ulbrich to focus their energies on helping out the SJ-O football program. With an assist from Skinner's brother-in-law Brendan Gillespie on this particular Wednesday since Gillespie manned the outdoor grill in Skinner's backyard to cook the steaks.
Even if the women aren't seeking the credit or limelight in playing a role in helping organize these special SJ-O team dinners. They'll slip quietly out Skinner's front door soon after the ninth-year SJ-O football coach arrives home just after 6 p.m. on this Wednesday.
"We'll leave when Shawn gets here," said Rohl, Skinner's mother. "This is his thing. We don't hang around."
Team meals aren't a new concept to the SJ-O football program. They've had them for years, starting with Skinner's predecessor, Dick Duval. The notion of breaking them up by classes and having them at the coach's house, though, is relatively new and started in the fall 2021 season.
It was an idea Skinner and his wife, Kelly, kicked around once he became the SJ-O coach in 2016. But one he didn't implement until five years later after previous team dinners on Thursday nights at the school -- which interfered with the Spartans' freshman football games and the fact many football players would go and watch the SJ-O volleyball team play that night -- and previous team breakfasts on Friday mornings.
"The breakfasts on Friday mornings were really fun, but as the parents pointed out, getting breakfast prepared and having it there on game day at 6:30 in the morning was hard on our parents," Skinner said. "It really was, and the guys even talked about getting up earlier on game day is not always what they wanted to do. My wife and I started really talking about having the dinners at our house during the COVID year, and my son was a senior the first year we did it, so his class was the first one that got steaks. It's been great."
The main course for the dinner is different for each class, too. Freshmen get hot dogs. Sophomores get hamburgers. Juniors get chicken wings from Hickory River Smokehouse. And seniors get steaks.
"It was a delicious steak," said Coy Taylor, SJ-O's senior wide receiver who has been a part of the program since he was a freshman. "Hot dogs are good, but it's nothing like a steak. It's always a good time going to Coach Skinner's house. We're the first senior class to go through all four years, so it's just a nice tradition to do, and I'm thankful Coach Skinner does this."
The Spartans had a team meal on Wednesday night this week at the school and will continue to do so the rest of the year, with no separation of grades. But getting those moments where one class can bond together at Skinner's house before the midway point of the season isn't lost on the players.
"It's nice as a senior knowing he splits it up like that because these are the guys that you enter high school with and the group you're going to end high school with," Taylor said. "It's just you and your guys."
Skinner didn't need to do much convincing when he asked his mom and her friends to contribute their culinary skills to the dinners.
"My mom was all for it," he said. "She talked to Karen, Kandy and Cathie, and they were all in. It's just been awesome."
Especially since Skinner played football for the Spartans and graduated from SJ-O in 1991. Right around the same time Kandi's son, Jeremy, and Karen's son, Tim, also played football for the Spartans.
"When I came off the field as a high schooler, three of those four women met me every Thursday with a hot dog or a hamburger," Shawn said. "That's how it started in the late 1980s. For them to come back as a full-circle moment, it means a lot."
Ulbrich echoed the sentiment.
"My daughter was home a few weekends ago, and I gave her the article in the paper that was about Shawn and the football team, and her son said, 'Do you know him?'" Ulbrich said. "My daughter said, 'Yes, he's like a brother. I've known him since I was about 5 or 6 years old.'"
Rohl attends many of the SJ-O games, and if any of the other three women can't make it, she keeps them informed of the score via text messages. Rohl also has a great-grandson, Sylas, who plays football at Fisher.
Getting the chance to help out a football program like SJ-O that has meant so much to them throughout their lives is another bonus.
"There's just been a long-standing tradition in St. Joe of supporting the sports teams and supporting the schools," Rohl said. "It's something that we feel like is our contribution to furthering their success. It makes it our football team, too. The school, the community, it's being part of the whole thing and being proud of it."
Shortly after Bishop, Miller, Rohl and Ulbrich leave Skinner's house, the 18 seniors on this year's SJ-O football team start filing in along with several of the Spartans' assistant coaches. They hang out together on Skinner's back deck, with sunset still about 45 minutes away, and then filter into the kitchen to make plates for themselves.
The players stay outside and eat, a chance to unwind together after practice.
"The chicken wings last year were hard to beat, but I was excited for the steak," SJ-O senior linebacker Jared Altenbaumer said. "It's also kind of sad, too, because it's my senior year and the last meal at coach's house. We're very thankful and very appreciative of what they do for us. Getting a chance to spend time with your team when it's not just on the field helps so much with your chemistry."
SJ-O junior quarterback Kodey McKinney said the team dinners serve another purpose, too.
"I think it brings some kids back out each year, to be honest," he said.
Skinner said having the dinners at his house are beneficial for he and his coaching staff.
"The coaches have lives and things they've got to do, but they do a great job of being here," he said. "It's an awesome opportunity to sit with them, commune together and get to know each other a little better. There's no stress in it. It's just fun. I'm fortunate that we can do it."
And when next September arrives, expect to see Bishop, Miller, Rohl and Ulbrich back in Skinner's kitchen again. Doing what they love to do: spending time together, making meals and putting others before themselves.
"Whatever the kids or the grandkids want, we try do what we can to make it happen," Rohl said. "As a grandma that enjoys football, I'm happy that it continues in my family."