Page 24 - Barbecue News Magazine September 2021

bbq profile
BBQ PROFILES:
T. Michael Garrison
The Flying BBQ Judge mgarrison8@sbcglobal.net
As the end of the competi-
tion year approaches those
teams in the top running
are seeking locations where
they can generate points.
Weather can limit the num-
ber of events, location can
also be limiting, and other
factors come into play
when searching for con-
tests. The Pandemic was a
serious blow as many long
time and top quality BBQ
events were canceled, some near the time of the actual event. Then the Rufus Teague team came along and started grabbing those dates that were opened up from cancella- tions. Thus the Southeast US has been drawing some of the top teams to their BBQ cookoffs. Many of these are double events where more points can be generated. As a Master Judge we have had the opportunity to sample some really top quality entries from these top teams. I am going to try to Profile as many of these
top teams as I can while this situation exists.
Today you will enjoy the story of a top, one man team, that has ventured to the Old South all the way from Cor- pus Christi, Texas. I think you will find his story very inter- esting, I certainly did. He cur- rently ranks number two on the Rufus Teague Top Teams and he is 21st on the KCBS list of 1152 teams. Until re- cently he was much higher on that list. For those of you that participate in the South- east you know this has to be Redmule’s Bad Ass BBQ. Lee Hickel is the man who has
put this team together and has started from nothing in the BBQ World and climbed that mountain to be compet- ing near the top. Lee had ab- solutely no experience with BBQ growing up. His Mother cooked all of his meals inside, in the kitchen, and he didn’t have as much as a hot dog or a hamburger cooked over an open fire when he was young. He was born in Bellevue, Washington and moved around the country a lot with his family. Generally, he was raised in Arkansas. Graduat-
ing from high school in 1989 he joined the Coast Guard and spent a career serving our wonderful country.
His first exposure to cooking over an open fire was while he was in the Coast Guard, around 1996-97. It was brisket, ribs and Fajitas. At this point in his career, he was stationed in Texas. He really liked this type of food and wanted to learn more. Some of his Coast Guard friends coaxed him to at-
tend a BBQ cookoff at the VFW in Houston. The compe- tition was sanctioned by the International BBQ Cookers Association or IBCA. This or- ganization cooks three meats, brisket, ribs and half chick- ens. He decided if he was going to go to a competition BBQ that he would enter and compete. How could this be so difficult. Since he had no equipment, he went to a well known pit manufacturer and said he needed a pit to cook competition BBQ. Their reply, the lead time was 3 months for them to manufacturer the cooker. He had eight days so he offered to pay them one and a half times their asking
BarbecueNews.com - 24
SEPTEMBER 2021
Lee Hickel