Can a rare heirloom rice variety give the Denver Broncos a competitive edge?

“He had a Colorado look, like a younger version of an extra on ‘Mountain Men.’ You can see him running the trap, man!”

That was Tommy Wheeler’s first impression of Justin Domsch, executive chef of the Denver Broncos, at the National Restaurant Association Show in Chicago in May. Wheeler was there to get people interested in Carolina Gold, an heirloom rice product from his North Carolina-based Tidewater Grain Company.

Wheeler didn’t know who Domsch was, but he knew he was important. “Even though it was my first time at the show, I quickly learned that the ‘pros’ are the buyers who have their badges flipped over so that you can’t see who they’re with,” Wheeler said. “They’ll talk to you when they want to.”

Domsch struck up a conversation about rice. He told Wheeler that the NFL teams that have been studying nutrition fully believe that a player’s career longevity and health depend on it. Domsch went on, “I would like to buy some rice for my team. We believe in your message and what the product represents. Carolina Gold is the only heirloom rice in the Americas.”

Wheeler, apparently, didn’t need to pitch his product; it was speaking for itself.

Domsch then gave Wheeler his business card with the Broncos’ iconic horse head logo. Wheeler immediately sensed a tremendous opportunity and thought, “Uh, oh. We’re in deep water now!”

Domsch’s curiosity drew him to the trade show since he’s “always looking for something new and exciting that would be a great fit” for the Broncos. In 2014, the Florida native joined the team’s nutrition staff after several years as a private chef in California. That year, the Broncos decided to keep the entire nutrition program in-house rather than outsourcing it to a caterer or food service company.

“I love rice,” said Domsch. “When I was a kid, my mom frequently made that yellow saffron rice — I think it was the Vigo brand — with peas and chicken. I always used to love that. Rice is so diverse because it’s a staple in so many countries.”

When he saw the words “Carolina Gold Rice” in Wheeler’s display, he thought, “Awesome!” He had some knowledge of the product already.

Domsch travels quite a bit, and it was on a trip to Charleston, S.C. where he first learned about Carolina Gold and the efforts to revive its farming. This comeback story speaks to the deep history of rice in North America. Indigenous people harvested wild rice in parts of the Americas for eons before European contact.

Of the hundreds of thousands of enslaved West Africans brought to British North America to cultivate indigo and tobacco, some came from a region in West Africa where they grew a native species of rice. Some slave ships were provisioned with this reddish-hued rice to feed the enslaved during the harrowing, weeks-long journey across the Atlantic Ocean, known as “The Middle Passage.”

If the conditions were right, enslaved people bound to plantations cultivated West African rice to get a taste of home and supplement the meager rations provided by slaveholders.

The marked success of the enslaved rice farmers motivated many slaveholders to cultivate rice on a large scale. By the late 1600s, rice varieties from Asia and West Africa were farmed along the coastal regions of Virginia, the Carolinas and Georgia.

How did Carolina Gold become the preferred rice variety? Legend has it that in the late 1600s, a ship from Madagascar bound for a Caribbean destination was diverted to Charleston because of a storm. While waiting for repairs, the ship’s captain gave rice samples to some of the locals that they were encouraged to plant.

This rice became known as Carolina Gold, and it did so well in South Carolina’s coastal regions — thanks mainly to African American rice farming expertise — that it soon became a major cash crop. The rice earned its nickname because of its golden color (when not hulled) and its economic value.

The Carolina Gold rice rush ended in the late 1800s when post-Civil War economic forces and a series of storms ravaged the industry.

Because so many enslaved West Africans were responsible for Carolina Gold’s success, there’s a widespread (and mistaken) belief that it is native to West Africa. Judith Carney, an emeritus professor of geography at the University of California at Los Angeles and author of “Black Rice: The African Origins of Rice Cultivation in the Americas,” clarifies. “Carolina Gold is an Asian sativa rice — imported after the rice economy had taken off for its higher productivity and suitability to tidewater growing conditions.”

“When enslaved rice growers began cultivating it as a subsistence preference, plantation owners became aware of the grain’s suitability for cultivation,” Carney added.

Carolina Gold became a lucrative cash crop because it could be milled mechanically without shattering, unlike rice varieties that had to be milled by hand using a mortar and pestle.

So when Domsch saw Wheeler at the Illinois trade show, he was prepared. “I knew about it, I’ve done the history on the rice, and I wanted to play around with it. Carolina Gold is nutrient-dense, and that’s great for the players. There are a lot of nutrients and proteins in there and carbohydrates because it’s not as refined as other types of rice.” Though Carolina Gold is strongly associated with South Carolina, Wheeler is currently the only one growing it in North Carolina.

So, what’s the game plan when it comes to feeding a professional football team?