Hot Corner: Northwestern's meat & greet

Northwestern senior offensive lineman Al Netter is a big guy: 6-6, 310 pounds. So it stands to reason that he would take part in an annual event during the Wildcats’ offseason called “Meatfest.”

Sun-Times: What exactly is this meat-a-thon event I’ve been hearing about?

Al Netter: We always do ‘‘Meatfest.” It’s for anybody on the team. We send out a teamwide e-mail and pick a house – it usually doesn’t matter where – and then we’ll have people bring grills, so we can have three or four grills going at once.

The whole idea of it is you bring whatever meat you want and just throw it on the grill, and it’s just good team camaraderie. We do it at the end of every summer.

S-T: About how many guys do this?

AN: There’s probably 40 or 45, so pretty good numbers.

S-T: What is the most exotic type of food that was brought in?

AN: I think a few people had bison burgers, which are pretty good. I don’t know about anything else that rare. It’s usually just the basics, like chicken and sausages and burgers.

Tina Akouris