Lineman competition at W. Aurora on Thursday

Quarterbacks, defensive backs and receivers have their days in the sun.

Mike Powers and Buck Drach figured, why not linemen, too?

Started years ago when both men coached football at St. Charles East, the Battle of the Big Butts lineman competition enters its 13th year on Thursday at West Aurora.

“It was something that Buck and I did, and we brought it here. I guess nobody’s complained,” said Powers, West Aurora’s offensive line coach.

Following Drach’s retirement after last season, he’s now working under first-year Blackhawks head varsity coach Nate Eimer, a graduate of “West High.”

The one-day competition modeled on the “World’s Strongest Man” television shows offers seven different events. It will be capped by the nonscoring watermelon eating race.

“That’s why teams come to this,” said Powers, whose wife, Terrie, will be among those judging to see who can chew the fruit off the rind the fastest.

T-shirts are awarded to individual and team event winners, and the overall champion. Barrington, a traditional Big Butts titan, is the defending champion.

Schools can enter as many five-man teams as they’d like, broken down into varsity and frosh-soph levels. They slug it out in bench press, 40-yard dash, medicine ball throw, agility run, tractor tire relay, 5-man sled and a tug of war. Blackhawks cheerleaders are there to add up the totals and declare the leaders.

Cost of a five-man team is $30, but before simply wading in at Thursday’s 2 p.m. check-in, each athlete must have a signed waiver to participate. Powers sent about 200 emails to school athletic directors.

“All the receivers and quarterbacks, defensive backs, they get all this work on 7-on-7 (camps). We took our team to Bolingbrook last week for their Jamboree, and the linemen were kind of left home,” Powers said.

Thursday they get their (big) butts in motion.

“We wanted something for the linemen, something for them to have some fun,” Powers said.

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