The Whole 10 Yards

As the sun dipped below the stadium bleachers, Kornhoff turned on the popcorn machine, poured in two cups of kernels and asked the three women to form an assembly line behind him. One woman poured the popped corn into a box, another sprinkled each box with seasoning and the third placed the boxes into a large red crate, where they would be stored until just before Thursday night's kickoff.

"This is like practice for Thursday night," Kornhoff told the three women as he poured more popcorn kernels into the machine. "It's going to be crazy in here. You've got to work fast, fast, fast. We operate like a machine. It's actually amazing."

Six Hours to Kickoff

His Outback restaurant in Arlington was scheduled to stay closed for another three hours, but co-owner Keith Kirkland unlocked the front door at 1 p.m. on Thursday and walked into the kitchen. He boiled 15 pounds of pasta and cooked 80 chicken breasts. Then he warmed more than 50 loaves of rye bread and turned on the lights in his dining room.

During the next two hours, more than 70 Robinson football players and coaches rotated through the restaurant -- and Kirkland fed all of them, for free, as he always had. It was a tradition that had preceded each Robinson game since 1993, when Outback first agreed to provide a pregame meal for the team in exchange for free advertising at Robinson home games.

"One thing I've learned," Kirkland said, "is that you can't cook these kids too much."

Last Thursday, seven parent volunteers dressed as waitresses, and they carried out trays of fettuccine and platters of bread. To supplement Kirkland's cooking, parents brought a cake, three boxes of chocolate chip cookies and 40 bananas. Diane Dempsey, the lead parent volunteer, hurried from table to table and refilled waters. She planned to spend four hours at Outback; she would set the tables and then stay to clean them. She hoped to finish in time to drive to Robinson and watch her son, Jimmy, play linebacker.

"As long as I'm done before kickoff, that's all I care about," Diane said. "I'll stay here all day if I have to."

Two Hours to Kickoff

Tony Hedgepeth whirled around in the Robinson parking lot and saw three school buses rolling toward him. He held up his right hand, motioning for the driver of the first bus to stop.

"What are these buses doing?" Hedgepeth said. "They've made this a mess."

Hedgepeth had expected the buses carrying football players and coaches from Lake Braddock High School. But he had expected them to use the opposite entrance to the parking lot. By approaching from the wrong side, the Lake Braddock buses had blocked Robinson's faculty parking lot. Hedgepeth marched over to the first idled bus and knocked on the driver's door.

In the 25 years since he graduated from Robinson, Hedgepeth had spent a good chunk of his free time volunteering for the school's athletic department. His domain consisted of a series of odd jobs crucial to hosting a game. He placed pylons of the field, roped off a section of the bleachers for booster-club members and guided opposing teams into the visiting locker room. Hedgepeth knew, better than anybody, that buses could only use one entrance at Robinson. And this wasn't it.

"Hey, wrong way," Hedgepeth told a Lake Braddock assistant coach who had walked off the bus. "You have to pull the buses back around and come in the other side."