Photos by Matt Gentry | The Roanoke Times

Soda hawkers Mandy Mach (from left) and Bailey Steele cash out with Sandy Merrix in the "fast fill" room of the stadium. Merrix has been working at the games on behalf of the Holy Spirit Catholic Church in Christiansburg for the past five years.

Sam Ercolano (center), a member of Radford University's Delta Chi fraternity, serves customers at the fraternity's stand near Section 405 of the south end zone of Lane Stadium. Ercolano says that they earn about $500 to $700 per game and that money goes back into various philanthropy projects throughout the year that the fraternity sponsors.

Daniel Maderic, aka "Ice Man," of Holy Spirit Catholic Church in Christiansburg watches as cups are filled with Coke products in the "fast fill" room of Lane Stadium.

A customer pays for a drink at the Aldersgate-Jordan's Chapel United Methodist Church concession stand in the south end of Lane Stadium.

Customers stand in line at a concession stand run by New River Community Student Ministry RAGE during a Virginia Tech football game in Lane Stadium.

Statistics are typically very important to the serious sports fan, but even the most die-hard Hokie is unlikely to have any idea what kind of stats are behind the food service end of a Virginia Tech football game.

Imagine approximately 7,000 hot dogs, 25,000 sodas, 8,000 bottles of water, 4,000 pretzels, 2,000 pizzas and a couple thousand servings of nachos and you start to get a sense of the scale.

But that is what Doug Dodson, food service director for Boston Culinary, says is produced and sold on an average game day at Lane Stadium.

It's Dodson's job to coordinate this massive operation not just for football games, but for all Tech sports events that sell concessions.

"In addition to football, we do men's and women's basketball, men's and women's soccer, wrestling, indoor track in the wintertime and, in the springtime, it's baseball, softball and lacrosse."

Boston Culinary, which is based in Cambridge, Mass., has managed Tech concessions for 15 years and runs similar operations at Land Shark Stadium in Miami, the University of Florida and several other colleges.

According to Dodson, his employees can expect 12-hour days for the average football game and perhaps half that for basketball games.

But surprisingly, Boston Culinary employs only about 20 workers per game, and their job is largely to manage the inventory and keep things running smoothly as needs arise.

Instead, the concession stands are run by community groups and charities such as churches, youth groups and organizations such as the Montgomery County Humane Society.

"We have 32 groups operating 36 stands at the football games each season," Dodson said, "and they stay in the same place each week."

"Some of the groups who do football also do basketball, but basketball is scheduled separately."

Dodson says there is no formal application process.

Instead, interested groups simply need to contact him to participate in the program, but, he said, he likes to have his selections in place by spring.

The only requirements are that the participating group is a nonprofit entity, though not necessarily a 501(c)(3), and that the group commits to all home games each season.

Naturally, managing this many groups takes effort.

Before each event, Boston Culinary estimates the number of each item needed at each station, supplies the products and logs in the inventory.

At the end of the event, each group counts what remains of the hot dog buns, popcorn boxes, soda cups, nacho containers and the like to figure their sales.

"They get 11 percent of what their sales are," Dodson said.

"I would estimate that it comes to about $150,000 per season for just football."

Boston Culinary provides everything the organizations need except for labor, including training on how to operate the various ovens and machines necessary.

The health department also provides a class at the beginning of the season to clarify the regulations and advise volunteers on how to meet the standards.

Concession room assignments are based on the number of people each group can commit each week.

Holly King works the Aldersgate-Jordan's Chapel United Methodist Church concession stand in the south end of the stadium.

Their revenues are split between a building fund and church youth groups.

She said that the two churches, which are both led by Pastor John Grimm, found that by working together, they could get enough people power to keep things running smoothly.

"It's organized chaos," King said with a chuckle.

According to King, on a good day they have as many as 15 volunteers, but most of the time the number is about 11 workers.

"We can do it with eight," said King, "but it's tough."

King estimates that, on average, they can do $3,000 to $5,000 of gross sales per game and occasionally more when there is an early kickoff.

"I think it is because people don't have time to tailgate for the earlier games so they come in earlier and eat more and buy more," King said.

Sam Ercolano is in charge of the Radford University Delta Chi fraternity concession stand near Section 405 of the south end zone.

Ercolano said that they earn about $500 to $700 per game and that money goes back into various philanthropy projects throughout the year that the fraternity sponsors.

"Besides the money," Ercolano said, "we have a lot of friends that go to Tech and we get to see them."

They often meet people from other parts of the country and get a kick out of that as well, especially when Delta Chi fraternity members from across the nation buy from them.

But Ercolano made it clear that workers have to stay focused because, at the end of the day, the inventory moved has to equal the money taken in -- or they have to pay the difference.

"The biggest challenge we normally face in operating everything is the money aspect of it," Ercolano said.

"It is really about the communication between the brothers as we work because if we are supposed to have 132 peanuts and we end up with 129, then we are losing money."

Sandy Merrix has been working on behalf of the Holy Spirit Catholic Church in Christiansburg for the past five years in a "fast fill room," filling sodas at a rapid pace to hand over to the hawkers to sell in the stands.

"Oh, I don't get to see any of the games," said Merrix, who arrives at least an hour and a half before each game and stays an hour or so after they end.

"But we keep a radio going through the whole game," she added.

"We still want to root for our team."