Vincent King places first in eating competition
Vincent King has been preparing to be a competitive eater since he watched a hotdog-eating competition with his father at the age of 5.
“I finally got to make that dream a reality,” said King, the first-year English and economics student who won first place in Carolina Dining’s third annual Cereal Bowl Tuesday.
King’s prizes included a $75 Visa gift card and a new bicycle. He was very happy about the bike because he had been planning on buying a new one for the summer anyway.
The Cereal Bowl is a promotion for General Mills, the company that partners with Carolina Dining to provide cereal to the university’s dining halls.
“They (USC) support our brand, so we support them and their initiatives,” said Annie Novak, a General Mills field customer specialist for USC. “We like to create awareness on campus.”
The company’s most supplied cereal to USC is Cinnamon Toast Crunch, the product used in the competition. Contestants were given the choice to eat their cereal with milk, water or to eat it dry. All of them chose milk.
Contestants were given three cups of cereal and their choice of a regular, small spoon or a much larger one. King and the majority of contestants chose the smaller one.
“We aren’t measuring how much they can eat, just how quickly they can eat it,” said Victoria Boynton, a fourth-year public relations student. Boynton works in marketing for Carolina Dining Services and helped put the event together.
Five different regions of USC’s campus — north, south, central, off-campus and Fraternity and Sorority Life — were each represented by two competitors.
King, a Capstone House resident, represented the north campus.
“I went to Bates (House) the past week and practiced different strategies,” King said. “I knew the hardest part would be the precision strikes at the end when the cereal was floating around the bottom of the bowl.”
Second-year marine science student Kaagen Robinson took second place, and second-year molecular biology and criminology student Jerod Williams placed third.
Runner-up De’rio Briggs, a third-year computer science student, was quite hopeful prior to the competition.
“I’ve eaten very sparingly today. I’m ready to go ham — or in this case — crunch,” Briggs said.
Runner-up Lizzy Combs, a first-year clinical psychology student, said she had hoped the cereal would be Cheerios, while Briggs wished for Golden Grahams.
Runner-up Zach Morris, a fourth-year psychology student, was delighted the contest provided Cinnamon Toast Crunch. As an avid cyclist, Morris competed in the hopes of winning the bike for his girlfriend so she could ride with him. Unfortunately, the strategy of stuffing his face at Bates during the week prior didn’t work to his benefit.
For King, there was no crying over spilled milk.
“There was no penalty for spilling milk, so I just let half of it get on my face and my shirt,” he said. “I think that sped my time up a little bit.”