Fine Dining or Fast Food? Eating's Better in Power Five
https://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2017/12/21/us/ap-fbc-the...

The money they spend on dining and nutrition versus us is astounding.

How hard is it to find good nutrition in the cafeteria? There's a salad bar every day. There's a pasta bar if you need to carb up. There are always vegetables and fruit. There are eggs in the morning. A decent training table could be built from the cafe menu and the regular items.

I was thinking this same thing. How much of it is really about what is available compared to what can be taught to the athletes? Can we educate them better?

I'm sure that a larger investment in nutrition would certainly help and make a difference, but there are other steps you can take when it's not in the budget to do so, right?

Anyone who has been here for any amount of time knows this is one of my more important points to address in the life of an athlete. As an athlete it only took blowing up during a triathlon then turning around the next month and having a similar problem at mile 22 of a marathon to figure out what they taught us in med school about nutrition would not help my performance. Studying nutrition and applying to/working with BSU athletes we were able to entice dietetics to help us in the late 80s early 90s to pick through the athlete habits and try to direct them toward better choices in the dorms and off campus.

I am happy Giacomo put this up here and I am aware of all the non athletes who will argue about the choices OUr athletes make and the availability of food in the dorm. It is a complex subject and well known to the Power conference school that if they feed their athletes they will get better performance. Talking to coaches who have moved up to those conferences they will tell you the most significant differences are in the nutrition of athletes and the strength training those athletes receive before they tell you about charter flights and competition differences.

When Groce came it was a primary objective to provide more opportunities to athletes. It was a major victory to get nutritional shakes in a refrigerator in the locker room to fuel the bodies of athletes who left home for an 8 am class and went straight to practice with no opportunity to get lunch at noon then were in film or treatment or back to class till after the cafeteria closed at 6. When you talk to coaches at bigger programs they have fueling stations right outside the Volleyball locker room to make a healthy meal before their athlete heads straight to class or heads to an offf campus apt where they may make silly choices as they prepare their own meals. My own kid grew up eating healthy meals of chicken stir fry with fresh pea pods and carrots or flat iron steak, sweet potatoe and broccoli did not take the time to prepare that type of meal once he was at the Summit with Devo, AB and Asown. Juggling classes, practice and travel as well as shopping did not work as well as it should. Those Power conference schools make that not a choice. The results show in the athletes bodies. Garbage in garbage out vs fuel the machine it will run better.

This is a good article and a good talking point. Talking to JG he was the first coach who understood the importance of nutrition that I had met since we convinced Majerus that pizzas (his own personal daily choice) were not as good for his athletes as it was for him.

I sit on the fence on this issue. I certainly think nutrition is important and should be a priority. I don't think I want to spend the most, nor do I want to spend the least. I can see some schools like Alabama touting they spend 3.6M, and you're special, yada, yada, come here and you'll eat like kings every day. There is an arms race already going on with facilities and amenities.

I agree entirely Giacomo, I am torn on this issue, because I do see the benefit of the investment but the excess is mind-blowing.

Reading about "Bison Burgers" and "Mahi-Mahi steak" seems like ridiculous excess. You certainly don't "NEED" any of that stuff to practice good nutrition, but at the same time it doesn't hurt. I absolutely believe taking it to that extreme can significantly help you get more out of your training, recover better/faster which is a pretty good recipe to perform better and increase your odds of winning more games.

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Athletes DO have unique nutrition needs compared to most students let alone the average American. I read an article that Lebron spends over $1m a year on his body and I don't believe that includes a very specific diet and his own personal chef. I remember reading about Michael Phelps ABSURD 10,000 calorie diet preparing for the Olympics. While many Americans think about their diet in terms of losing weight, athletes are trying to get calories to build lean muscle and fuel their performance/recovery.

On the flip-side, I don't think there is an issue more polarizing when comparing "athlete benefits" to the "normal student." I remember my mother who was an athlete at Ohio once made a comment mirroring what OCF's wife said regarding the football meals compared to the meals of other athletes. I wasn't an athlete at Ohio but the #1 complaint I heard from my non-athlete friends about athletics was the differences in what they ate compared to normal dining hall food. FWIW, I know dining hall food overall has been massively revamped in the last couple years at Ohio which I think is important and a good move by the school to cater to students today.


$12,500 for advice from a nutrition professor seems like a reasonable "middle-ground" and a building block for us (assuming you could get the academics to buy-in and fully support the cause)
The article did say we spend the most in the MAC so maybe we are already doing something like this. I'd be curious to know what we programs we currently have in place. It seems like there could be some small investments in this area that would go a long way.

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Borna's comments about Groce are interesting. They specifically mentioned Akron in the article with the AD their faulting their poor performance down the stretch in hoops a couple years back on nutrition. They said a basketball coaches wife now fills in part-time consulting with players.

Make that 2 in 292,201,338.

"Clemson this year opened a $55 million football-only building featuring a dining hall where, once everything is up and running for the defending national champions, a player's biometric readings will help determine his recommended diet for the day. The player will put his thumb on a scanner and step on a scale, and his personal menu will be produced based on the information gleaned from the readings."

Meanwhile, Ohio offers a shelf of granola bars and apples.

"Ohio provided a snack station for the first time last year, allocating $35,000 for what it described as "dry food items and fruit.""

My comment is not a dig at Ohio, but the gap between money spent between programs (i.e. "The Arms Race") is really getting worse. How do programs like Ohio compete? And people are up in arms over an athlete academic center in Athens? Try proposing an athlete-only dining hall with chef, nutritionists and staff.

Depends what the priorities of the institution itself are. I don't know anything about Clemson academically or the community, but I don't think anyone there is complaining about competing for a football championship the last three years in a row.

When you take an athlete and consider a class schedule, practice schedule, Study tables, travel schedule, film, lifting,training staff treatment without figuring out how to factor in time to eat you have a problem. If you have not considered how those time constraints differ from the general student body then we are going to be stuck in this place ongoing. I do not think those folk who are supporting Power conference schools are even batting an eye at the need for training tables. They seem to be a bit more enlightened as to what it takes.

If you have not sat with a number of the athletes and actually looked at a map of campus with their class and team related schedules it is easy to assume they are "privileged". Choosing to make it from class at 1150 to practice down the hill and be dressed at 12pm leaves some practicing without anything in their stomach. Works for those of us in the private sector....but if I were training for anything I would have to readjust my schedule.

I won't say that there are not a number of things the individual athletes could not change but I do see what the more focused schools are doing to fuel their bodies does to benefit the athletic program. That said, I understand those members of the BSU Faculty Senate that come in my office and complain about every meal, roll of tape and shirt each athlete gets and how they believe it affects their next raise.

Moreso than tolerance for amenities for student-athletes, I wonder how long coaching salaries will be acceptable at universities. We've already reached ridiculous level and it will only get worse. Unlike high-priced amenities that serve upwards of thousands of student-athletes, high-priced contracts benefit one individual.