Checking in with Wing Bowl champion Sebastian Jaskowski

Penn football senior cornerback Sebastian Jaskowski is riding high after winning a major off-field honor: a Wing Bowl College Division championship. We spoke with the gastronomically-fortuitous Red and Blue star to discuss the Philadelphia tradition:

The Daily Pennsylvanian: So I suppose the first question on my mind — and everybody’s mind — is: How did the idea for you to go to Wing Bowl first come about?

Sebastian Jaskowski: I was reached out to by my coach [running backs coach Steven Downs], and he was looking for someone to compete in the Wing Bowl. They were looking for a guy from Penn, and they figured they’d try and get one from the football team. I guess I’ve got a little bit of a reputation for eating on the team, so he called me up and asked me, and I just took the opportunity.

DP: Did you do any special training for this, or just sort of rely on your natural eating instincts?

SJ: I think it was a little bit of both. I only got a week to train for this. I would literally just bang out two times getting wings, and really just stuffing my face, I guess. But no, I wasn’t doing any formal training going into this … I guess a little practice went into eating wings, but most of it was just natural.

DP: Going into it on Friday, was that your first time ever going to Wing Bowl? Was it something completely new to you?

SJ: It was my first time I had ever gotten to Wing Bowl. We usually had football or something to do [at the time]. So I’d heard about it, I’d heard it was such a great event to be part of, not just for wings, but with the girls and everything there. It was good to be there for the first time, and especially being there to eat, too, was awesome.

DP: Was the atmosphere as overwhelming and outrageous as it appears to be for outside observers?

SJ: Yeah, I did not know what I was getting myself into. It actually surpassed my expectations of how crazy it was [going to be]. It’s 5 a.m. There are probably like 20, 23 thousand people out there, watching people eat wings, so it was pretty ridiculous. It’s a ridiculous concept, but it was a lot of fun to be a part of, and just seeing all the pageantry and everything that comes with it.

DP: In the actual competition itself— what was it, 78 wings? — how did you handle that?

SJ: It was actually pretty gross to eat that amount of wings that early in the morning. I mean, the only thing on my mind was winning the competition, because I knew with the competition was a car [as the grand prize]. So, I really just tried to swallow my pride, basically, and just eat as many wings as I can. I knew there was a grand prize of a car, so of course I’m going to get up and eat a lot of wings for that.

DP: And now that you have the Chrysler 200 [the grand prize], what are you going to do with it?

SJ: I’m definitely keeping the car. I don’t have really any incentive to sell it. It’s gonna have a lot of sentimental value when it comes to just showing it off to people, telling them I won it eating wings. I’m probably gonna keep it. I don’t know how much use I’ll have for a car in the city, but I guess that’s really a good problem to have.

SEE ALSO

Ziebelman | Wing Bowl puts women in unsettling moral venue

Lengyel | A wing-sperience to remember

Booze, boobs and birds: Wing Bowl XXII

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