Tennessee athletes bond over meals
Roommates from diverse backgrounds share culinary creations
KNOXVILLE, TENN. An Italian, a Mexican, a South African and an American sit around a dinner table.
It’s not a joke. It’s a daily routine for four University of Tennessee athletes.
Lorenzo Scalise, a golfer from Milan; Juan Carlos Serrano, a golfer from Mexico City; Ryan Coetzee, a swimmer from Phalaborwa, South Africa; and Jack Smith, a golfer from Knoxville, share an off-campus apartment where they prepare home-cooked meals nearly every night.
They share cultures, engage in lengthy conversations and always provide plenty of laughs.
Raised in an era in which U.S. family dinners have dwindled and people are more interested in their phones than in each other, the roommates have embraced an old school approach to meals.
For Scalise and Serrano, it helps ease homesickness.
“My family is Latin and Juan is from Mexico, and the family idea is very strong in the Spanish culture, so I guess we started it, and then Ryan just blended in,” Scalise said. “We kind of grabbed Jack. He is the loner and is always upstairs doing his own thing, but he loves to join us to eat the food we make.”
DIVERSE APPETITES Serrano and Smith, both seniors, have been living together for three years. They added Scalise, a junior, as a roommate two years ago, and Coetzee, a junior, moved in this school year. The group shops at Kroger each week for most of the ingredients and shares expenses. Monday is the most popular dinner night because it’s steak night.
On a recent Monday, the small apartment kitchen transformed into a whirlwind of activity and teamwork.
Coetzee is always in control of the steaks. Scalise prepares Italian raviolis with Barilla sauce from the jar. Serrano makes guacamole and quesadillas with Oaxaca cheese he brings back with him from Mexico in his luggage.
“I really enjoy the family that we have created, because most of us are from countries where family is valued a little bit more than it is in the U.S.,” Serrano said while slicing avocados for his family’s guacamole recipe. “But we want to try to keep living in that way here by doing this. I think it really helps.”
As they seamlessly pass utensils and ingredients around the kitchen counters, Scalise suddenly recoils at the sight of Coetzee.
“In Italy, you never pass the salt hand to hand,” Scalise said. “It’s bad luck. He does it all the time.”
Serrano jokes that Smith is “the best at cooking cereal,” but his mother has become their adopted American mom since they all began living together.
“If we ever have a question or need anything, we ask Amy. She is amazing,” Serrano said. “We’ve cooked for her before over here. We all love Amy.”
‘WE STICK TO SIMPLE STUFF’ Meals are a cherished activity for the roommates. They prefer cooking at home but venture out a few times a week.
“Americans eat out so much. I have never eaten out as much as I have since I’ve been here,” Scalise said. “At home (in Italy), for dinner you go out only if there is a special occasion. But my dad, not my mom, cooks at home.”
The nightly dinner conversations at the apartment span from deep philosophical discussions to random pop culture issues to typical observations of college life.
“One night, we wondered what would be enough to fulfill you to just go and sit on an island and enjoy life. Who would you take? Would we take golf clubs and go play or never take golf clubs ever again?” Coetzee said. “Then, we said the first one who wins big prize money in a sport would fly everybody else to a restaurant that he would pick to eat all together. I want to go to a steak- house in Japan for Wagyu beef.”
The roommates try to steer clear of politics.
“We pretty much keep it light mostly, like if anything bad happens to the foreign kids we might get deported. But at least we’ll all be together at some point,” Coetzee with a smile. “But we are not really too active into politics. We stick to simple stuff and have fun.”
CHANGES TO HOUSE MENU Home-cooked meals might be a bit abnormal for the average college men, yet everything in the apartment surrounding the dinner table fits the stereotype.
They have a video game console attached to the television, with Call of Duty as the current favorite. Computers, electronic devices and backpacks populate the living room.
With the school year and golf season ending, changes are coming to the apartment. Serrano will be moving out after graduation. He recently earned his Mackenzie Tour-PGA Tour Canada status. The season begins June 1.
The group has found a new roommate: former UT swimmer Chris Sadsad, who is from Jacksonville.
Although it won’t be the same without Serrano, the nightly dinner tradition will endure. The meals just might have a few different menu items to replace the guacamole and authentic Mexican Oaxaca cheese.
“Every time you come back from class or from practice and you want to tell your friend how your day was, we just do it around the table eating something all together,” Scalise said. “That is how we share things about our day, and I don’t want that to change. I love that.”