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‘Well-oiled machine’ of coaches, trainers, dietitians and chefs help UND’s student-athletes play at their best
Before UND’s student-athletes hit the field, track or ice, a key component of optimizing their performance is ensuring they are eating a nutritious diet.
Overseeing this task is a dedicated team of chefs, dietitians, athletic trainers and administrators.
Jennifer Haugen, a board-certified dietitian specializing in sports dietetics, recently began working with UND’s student-athletes. She is currently the only full-time sports dietitian focusing on collegiate athletics in the state.
An employee of Sanford Health — the official physician provider for UND Athletics — Haugen advises UND’s coaches, team chefs and student-athletes on the importance of a healthy diet.
“I tell athletes to think of their bodies like a car,” she said. “If you’re going fast and far, you’re probably going to need to fuel up again. It’s the same with your body — you need to put in the right type of fuel to make it go.”
Factors such as body composition, metabolism and the demands of the position played, Haugen added, are unique to each athlete. Thus, diets must be tailored to meet caloric needs.
Haugen added that one-on-one consultations are available to any UND student athlete upon request — a service she encourages them to use. Additionally, coaches can request a team lecture from Haugen on a variety of nutritional topics.
“Sometimes it’s nice to just sit with them individually,” Haugen said. “Everybody has different preferences. Some have intolerances or dislike certain foods and are not quite sure how to navigate that. Managing class schedules, practices, games and travel — all those things come up.”
Coaches also can schedule team lectures with Haugen on a number of topics — ranging from meal preparation, eating healthy on the road and counting calories.
Haugen also serves as a mentor for students enrolled in UND’s Nutrition & Dietetics program — a field she sees as having strong job prospects for its graduates.
Haugen stressed that the success of UND’s student-athletes hinges on collaboration between many departments.
“We work as a well-oiled machine in sports medicine — whether it be sports psychologists, athletic trainers or physicians,” she said.
While a nutritious diet and proper training are still paramount to peak performance, a healthy body also requires a support system of professionals advising student-athletes.
Steve Westereng, chair of the department of Sports Medicine at UND’s School of Medicine & Health Sciences, stressed the importance of his department forming personal relationships with student-athletes.
Westereng — who also oversees a team of 12 athletic trainers taking care of UND’s teams — said when Director of Athletics Bill Chaves was hired in 2018, he created an umbrella of focus areas under the direction of the NCAA. These include sports medicine, strength and conditioning, mental health and nutrition.
“My goal is trying to get people embedded,” he said. “Without them being embedded — whether that’s with mental health or nutrition — you’re very limited in what you can do. Once you start showing up to practices, or having a dietitian attend meals, the student-athletes realize they’re accessible, and that’s where the knowledge grows.”
“The addition of mental health and nutrition support has been great,” Westereng added. “Small details are important — like the timing of when you eat. Plus, athletes have to balance two full-time jobs — school and their athletic commitments.”
Westereng also opined that these benefits available to UND’s student-athletes show up in the classroom, in the form of better grade point averages.
“UND has a lot of really good students,” he said. “You look at the GPA of the entire athletic department being above 3.0 — that’s unbelievable.”
For several of UND’s teams — among them hockey, men’s and women’s basketball, women’s volleyball and women’s soccer — regimented practice schedules and similar caloric needs among athletes make eating together as a team practical.
That’s where the work of Rob Peterson, catering kitchen manager at the Ralph Engelstad Arena, and his staff come into play. While 12,000 raucous hockey fans are cheering on the team upstairs, a small army of culinary staff is working deep in the bowels of The Ralph to ensure the aforementioned teams are well-fed.
Peterson and his team of seven employees are responsible for feeding not only student-athletes but also catering the arena’s suites and preparing meals for media personnel and arena employees. This means long days — typically back-to-back 17-hour days during a weekend hockey series.
Adding to their workload is the voracious appetite of athletes — particularly UND’s hockey team. Due to the intense physical nature of the sport, athletes burn many thousands of calories a day.
“Hockey players, you have to realize, eat about three times what an average person would,” Peterson said. “There are 27 players, so it’s like cooking for over 60 people.”
Thus, on game days, kitchen space is at a premium.
“It looks like a big kitchen, but it gets small really fast,” Peterson said. “When we’re doing a hockey game, there’s so much stuff going on.”
Peterson — who has worked at The Ralph since it opened in 2002 — said teams’ meals have evolved greatly since. Shortly after Peterson took the job, former hockey coach Dave Hakstol approached arena staff with the idea of serving team meals.
“We didn’t even feed teams when I started here,” Peterson said. “They were eating over at Wilkerson and running out of food every time. He (Hakstol) came over and asked me, “Do you know how to make enough noodles for 35 hockey players?’”
With approval from Jody Hodgson, The Ralph’s general manager, Peterson obliged and began preparing pregame meals. Eventually, he and his staff expanded meal service for the hockey team to breakfast and postgame meals — along with cooking for men’s and women’s basketball, women’s volleyball and women’s soccer.
Mirroring a shift in hockey and other sports toward year-round conditioning and training, team meals have become more nutritious — with a healthy balance of fruits, vegetables, protein and carbohydrates. Gone are the days of top-level hockey players using training camp to get in shape and overindulging in unhealthy foods during the offseason.
“Back when we first started doing postgame meals, the guys just wanted something to grab and go like sloppy joes or pizza,” Peterson said. “Now with the nutritionists, it’s as healthy and homemade as we can get. Nothing fried — everything is baked.”
When UND’s teams hit the road for competition, their regimented diets often follow.
“Football for example, will stay at a hotel with catering, because buying meals from the hotel makes sense from an efficiency standpoint — rather than waiting for an hour at a restaurant,” Westereng said. “Jenn (Haugen) will work with the staff, give them a menu and say ‘this is what you want to put in the meal.’”
While certain teams dine together as a unit both at home and on the road, other sports such as track and field rely on a more individualized approach to nutrition.
“You wouldn’t buy hockey gear for a volleyball team,” said Liz Jarnigan, senior associate athletic director for internal operations. “The focus is on proper nutrition education and opportunities appropriate for each sport. And sometimes within each sport.”
Nonetheless, Jarnigan stressed that all of UND’s student-athletes have access to nutritious meals on campus — be it the Wilkerson Dining Center or several “fueling stations.” The latter are locations across campus where athletes can find nutritious snacks to keep them energized throughout the day.
Joe Banish is a 2017 graduate of Michigan State University. In 2022, he moved to Grand Forks to cover higher education for the Grand Forks Herald before joining the Division of Marketing & Communications in September 2023 as the strategic communication writer for UND Today.
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