July 25, 2019

Performance Nutrition

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EMPLOYMENT OPPORTUNITIES/QUESTIONS
STUDENT-ATHLETE QUESTIONS

There is no place like Nebraska when it comes to the high-performance fueling of hard-working athletes. Nebraska Performance Nutrition has a long-standing tradition of setting the highest standard for the ‘food first’ approach to fueling. Ask any of our student-athletes, in leadership positions, who compare notes with their contemporaries at Big Ten conference and national leadership meetings and the response will be the same: the Nebraska Performance Nutrition program is setting the standard for student-athlete welfare across collegiate athletics and beyond.

At Nebraska, our commitment to Performance Nutrition is unmatched and it prepares our athletes for a lifetime of proper nutrition. We have been a self-operating training since 1985. We have our own kitchen and our own full-time culinary staff, something that is unique in collegiate athletics. With this approach, we have the ability to source a food supply that is second to none when it comes to fresh, natural and organic sources that we know and trust.

Student-athletes are greeted by future and current dietitians when they enter the training table, having an immediate interaction with a trained professional who can help them work toward their nutrition goals. They then have a wide variety of options from which to choose, creating a meal that not only suits their nutritional needs, but their personal tastes as well. We prepare and cook all of our food in-house on a daily basis, ensuring a first-class experience that meets the nutrition needs of all of our student-athletes.

In addition to its every-day commitment to serving the needs of student-athletes, the Performance Nutrition staff went above and beyond during the pandemic, serving as a model for fellow performance nutrition departments.

Click here to read more about how Nebraska adapted its Performance Nutrition program to meet the challenges of the pandemic

Expert Staff Serving Student-Athletes

Nebraska has a staff of 70+ employees dedicated to serving the nutrition needs of its student-athletes. Nebraska has its own Executive Chef, Mike Steele, who innovates the menus.

At Nebraska, we pride ourselves on the impressive lineup of six culinary-trained chefs that direct and lead our Training Table operations. Our executive chef Mike Steele went to the New England Culinary Institute, is a certified executive chef through the ACF, and will be in his 15th year with Training Table in 2022-23. Bryce Benes attended Southeast Community College (SCC), spent time in the San Diego area, and has returned as our sous sports chef while he is pursuing an undergraduate degree in Hospitality. James Tinkler, another assistant sous sport chef, received his degree from the Art Institute of Houston. Alex Garden is a chef with years of experience in the hotel and restaurant industry, notably as the executive chef for The Scarlet Hotel in Lincoln and The Graduate hotel in Iowa City, as well as years spent cooking in fine dining establishments in Chicago. Finally, our chef RD Sammie Drake attended Johnson & Wales where she completed her culinary degree and classes to become a registered dietitian. All our chefs are very important to the fabric of our organization and aid Performance Nutrition in properly fueling our athletes.

Nebraska also has four, full-time Registered Dietitians (Sports RDs) on staff who help our athletes navigate the managed food supply that is served at each meal. Nebraska’s four, full-time Sports RDs, collectively, have 6+ decades of experience working in sports. Experience is key because sports require some very unique skill sets such as knowing how to help drug tested athletes avoid inadvertent adverse analytical findings (AAFs/positive drug test) that can result from adulterated dietary supplements!

The four RDs are joined by five assistant registered dietitians, who assist in all aspects of the Performance Nutrition program. Nebraska is not only a national leader in performance nutrition, we also pride ourselves on our ability to develop sports dietitians who go on to an impactful career. We are fortunate to have our five assistant registered dietitians, and several of our assistant RDs have gone on to become directors at other schools, including: Ethan Bauer (Performance Director at Tennessee); Rachel Voet (Director of Sports Nutrition for Football at Iowa State); Rosie Grant (Performance Nutrition Director of Football at Duke); Riley Loy (Director of Sports Nutrition for Football at LSU who then returned to Nebraska as Performance Nutrition Coordinator); Stephanie Synthorst (Performance Dietitian at Air Force) and Jaime Gottlieb (Dietitian with the San Diego Padres minor league baseball team). Maren Jensen, our former assistant sous sport chef, moved on to a job as executive chef with the Cleveland Browns.

The highly trained staff helps athletes follow a three-step approach called Fueling Tactics® that was conceived right here at Nebraska over three decades ago! It’s a simple system, where food is merchandised in three steps, each delivering a health and performance benefit for hard-working athletes.

Together with adequate sleep and a clean lifestyle, free of drugs or alcohol, fueling yourself over the course of a day will dictate how efficiently you recover from your training. The ultimate benefit to following this plan is that you have a shot at outworking the competition, which translates into a winning performance on game day!

Beyond game day, Nebraska Sports RDs are the most highly trained in the emerging field of Food and Supplement Security! All our student-athletes are educated on the vulnerability that they expose themselves and teammates to when selecting dietary supplements without the guidance of their team Sports RD vs. sticking to what we supply as an athletic department. Athletes are taught to never use something from a teammate’s locker.

Other areas that our Sports RDs can help personalize your program include:

Lean Mass Testing – DEXA based assessment to optimize power-to-weight ratio.
Frame Testing – to assess maximum lean mass weight carrying capacity.
Off-Season Body Composition Change Planning – big moves in body composition should only happen during the off-season and require thoughtful coordination between Sports RDs and the Strength Staff.
Hydration / Sweat Rate Analysis – ensure adequate hydration strategies and buffering tactics to minimize the risk of cramping and injury risk for sickle trait athletes.
Saliva/Urine/Blood Analysis – screen and monitor for insufficiency/deficiency of nutrition markers for performance cut-offs.
Cooking / Grocery Shopping Classes – providing student-athletes with knowledge to last a lifetime (especially important for athletes living off-campus for the first time)
Dietary Supplement Review – disclosures upon arrival to campus of what is being used is critical to avoid positive doping test that can result from use of adulterated dietary supplements or highly fortified functional foods.

The Nebraska Performance Nutrition team has set an unprecedented standard in sports with nearly 100 professionals working daily to help our student-athletes outwork the competition! That is simply unmatched in sports!

Life Skills Stations
Life Skills Kitchen
No one can hand these benefits to you. It’s up to you to develop habits that become part of a routine that is up to professional standards. Olympic and professional athletes have rock solid routines that are resilient to distractions, while they are self-sufficient when it comes to feeding themselves! That is why you will have the chance, while you are at Nebraska, to learn how to cook your own food in our Life Skills Kitchen (LSK)!

At each meal in the training table, you will have the opportunity to learn cooking skills that will carry over on weekends and off-days when you might find yourself defaulting to fast food as a solution. Instead, Nebraska athletes will have the skills and confidence to prepare their own meals and that is a pro routine!

Gallery: (5-16-2022) Life Skills Kitchen

Pizza Self-Make
The training table also features a pizza station with a self-operated pizza oven, allowing student-athletes to customize their ingredients and bake their own pizza.

Gallery: (5-16-2022) Pizza Station

Deli Self-Make
There is also a deli station, where student-athletes can choose from a variety of meats and fresh and healthy toppings to create their own sandwich.

Immune Health Kitchen
Another popular feature of the training table is the Immune Health Kitchen, which features a self-operated smoothie operation where student-athletes can customize and create their own smoothies.

Gallery: (5-16-2022) Immune Health Kitchen

If you get into a jam and don’t have time to cook a meal, we have you covered with a ready-to-eat food supply and to-go meals that offer fueling solutions when you have class conflicts. Meal service windows are wide open for Nebraska athletes to eat Monday through Friday.

Lunch: 10:00 AM-1:00 PM
Dinner: 4:30 PM-6:30 PM

Previous Events
Nebraska Performance Nutrition is also unique in creating fun and innovative ways for student-athletes to interact with the world of nutrition. Among the engaging activities are athlete cooking competitions hosted by the staff. These uniquely Nebraska competitions put athletes in a situation where they can not only show off their culinary chops, but compete against one another in a culinary engagement activity. Performance Nutrition also plans diversity and inclusion events, as the staff values and acknowledges culturally diverse food preferences and caters to them. To enhance the atmosphere, these events feature DJ Dr. Chatters as a live DJ. Nebraska's Executive Associate Athletic Director of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, Chatters partners with the Nutrition staff to bring those values to training table and the food we serve. Previous diversity and inclusion events include a Black History Month dinner and international dinners that featured European, Asian, Pacific Islander and Latino cuisine. More events are planned. Fried alligator was served during the Black History Month dinner and spam musubi for the Asian, Pacific Islander and Latino cuisine and schnitzel for the European dinner.

Gallery: (6-27-2022) Performance Nutrition Events

Beyond the Training Table
Nebraska’s ‘food first’ approach to outworking the competition doesn’t end at the training table. Our Sports RDs orchestrate meals on the road for your team and offer fueling solutions before and after workouts or competition. This attention to detail helps you get those critically timed sources of fuel and fluids that hard-working muscle requires in just the right amounts. To make fueling convenient when training we have two locations adjacent to the weight rooms where grab and go nutrition support is available to all our student-athletes.

Also, in addition to meals provided at the training table Monday through Friday, student-athletes are also taken care of on the weekends. Student-athletes can receive Husker Bucks to dine at select local restaurants on the weekend or they may choose to receive a HyVee Husker Bucks option to purchase groceries to prepare their own weekend meals using the knowledge they’ve gained in the Life Skills Kitchen.

Additionally, all student-athletes (scholarship and non-scholarship) are offered a morning pre-/post-workout meal during the academic year and all student-athletes are offered a summer Lewis Training Table meal.

Coming in 2023: GO BIG Project (New Nutrition Facility)
Nebraska Performance Nutrition will have a new home in August of 2023, when the newest expansion to Memorial Stadium opens. Conveniently located on the North end of campus, the new facility will nearly double the size of the current training table, kitchen and Performance Nutrition areas.

Adapting to NCAA Rules
Recent NCAA legislation enabled institutions to enhance snacks and meals provided to student-athletes. At Nebraska, we embraced those changes with an increased nutrition budget and additional meals and fueling options for student-athletes. The health and performance of our student-athletes is our top priority, and we are committed to evolving our offerings as future NCAA regulations may allow. With the largest budget and largest staff, Nebraska has the largest financial commitment to feeding and supplementing student-athletes in the NCAA.

Allergens
As part of our emphasis on the safety and health of our student-athletes, Nebraska Performance Nutrition pays special attention to allergens. We take extra precautions in checking allergens daily and potential allergens are always labeled on the menu card for each item.

Calculating Nutritional Value of Meals
Student-athletes have access to complete nutritional information for every item on the menu. The Performance Nutrition staff creates a barcode for each menu item that is scannable into the MyFitnessPal app, which will bring up a nutrition facts panel for athletes to view.

Supplements

At Nebraska, we have a FOOD FIRST policy. There are thousands of different supplements on the market today. Our job is to ensure the athlete is safe. The Sports Dietitian reviews all supplements to ensure the supplement does not contain, or could potentially contain, a banned substance. If athletes come to the Sports Dietitian with any inquiries regarding sports supplements, only supplements with significant research suggesting performance or health benefits and those certified through NSF Certified for Sport will be recommended. Remember - Supplements only complement a solid diet.

Athletes should immediately disclose to their sports dietitians supplements they are taking upon arrival on campus. There is a chance a student-athlete could have been taking a supplement that contained a banned substance without knowing for multiple years in high school because there is no drug testing.

To learn more about third-party certification programs that verify safety of dietary supplements and highly fortified conventional foods go to https://www.nsfsport.com/.

Gallery: (5-16-2022) Performance Nutrition Photo Gallery