By Mikala Morris, Arizona State Graduate Student
There's a team in the Sun Devil Athletics program that doesn't count wins and losses. They don't play for a conference title or a national championship. They thrive based on helping other teams succeed, impacting student-athletes one-on-one and pushing them to perform at the highest possible caliber.
Sometimes unnoticed, one of the fastest growing fields in the sports world is also developing at Arizona State. The Sun Devil Athletics sports nutrition program has grown from one registered dietitian to four within six months - allowing the program to make an even stronger impact in the fueling, educating and recovering process for Sun Devil student-athletes.
Amber Yudell, Director of Sports Nutrition for Sun Devil Athletics, has worked hard for five years to add an additional sports dietitian position, a sports nutrition immersion fellow and a graduate student dietitian to her team. Finally, her hard work is paying off. A more individualized-approach to helping student-athletes. Every day is different and non-stop for the Sun Devil Athletics sports nutrition program. For the four registered dietitians on staff, they are divided up among ASU's 24 teams to serve more than 600 student-athletes. Each of the dietitians is responsible for the student-athletes on their assigned teams, whether that's preparing menus for performance-focused dinners offered three times a week, educating them as a team on how to balance their diet, weighing them before and after practice to gauge sweat loss, or hosting one-on-one counseling sessions.
They help student-athletes stay fueled before, during and after practices, monitor their meals, informally meet and talk with the student-athletes about their nutrition and perform body composition testing. They'll also meet with whole teams to engage in discussion about the struggles they face with maintaining a healthy diet and staying hydrated throughout the day.
Samantha Liotta, a registered dietitian who joined the Sun Devils in February, emphasizes the importance in recognizing why nutrition is so crucial to athletic performance and recovery.
"Nutrition is such an everyday part of life. We eat every day, no matter what. It becomes second nature so you don't have to think about it," Liotta said. "But these athletes, they have to think about it because it impacts their overall performance. So I try to put it into this perspective – You choose to go work out, you choose to finish that set, you choose to complete each rep and with nutrition, you have to choose to get your performance meals in to be successful."
A growing sports nutrition program allows the team to widen the breadth of student-athletes that they can serve each day. It makes them more accessible for when student-athletes have questions and presents more opportunities to be present at practices, weights, meetings and competitions. It allows the student-athletes to see the importance of how their nutrition affects their performance and can elevate the Sun Devil Athletics program to the next level.
In ASU baseball senior catcher Nick Cheema's eyes, the sports nutrition program has significantly impacted his entire team by offering healthy choices for fueling and recovery snacks, smoothies and meals.
"For the young guys just coming in and not knowing what to eat and not really being able to cook in the dorms, they get healthy options of things provided in the weight room, they get smoothies after practices and they get to eat well on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesdays," Cheema said. "It's been really helpful, especially for the younger guys."
Sun Devil beach volleyball senior Halle Johnson Pasichnuk said that having access to recovery and fueling snacks in the weight room is really helpful when facing back-to-back lifts and practices. She also appreciates the increased accessibility to reach one of the dietitians on staff and has seen it as incredibly helpful in helping her achieve her nutrition goals.
"Right after weights, I can always go pop in their office and they're always open to answer any type of questions I need or provide me with a food plan or whatever to fit my specific needs at the moment," Johnson Pasichnuk said.
For Liotta, her biggest takeaway from the growth of the sports nutrition program has been the increased level of comfort in the relationships between student-athletes and dietitians.
"Student-athletes really notice our sports nutrition program growing. With the excitement they have when they see their sports dietitian and the level of comfort they have going to their sports dietitian, I've just seen this grow immensely in the time I've been here," Liotta said. "It's making a big impact on them and the questions they ask and the knowledge that they have."
ASU chosen for competitive sports nutrition immersion program for third year in a row.
For the third year in a row, Arizona State University was chosen as one of only 10 mentor host sites in the country for Gatorade's competitive Sports Nutrition Immersion Program (SNIP).
Emily Orvos, a recent graduate from University of Missouri-Columbia's Master of Science in Dietetics, began working this fall as a fellow with Sun Devil Athletics sports nutrition to assist the team in helping ASU's 24 athletic programs.
SNIP pairs advanced sports dietitians with members of the Collegiate and Professional Sports Dietitians Association who are looking for practical, hands-on experience with elite student-athletes and programs. The program focuses on mentoring recently graduated dietitians with more advanced sports dietitians in the field and bringing new and innovative ideas to accomplished athletic programs and institutions. Other institutions that were selected as host sites for this program include the United States Olympic Training Center, the New Orleans Saints and Pelicans and the IRONMAN institute.
Orvos knew she wanted to pursue a career in sports nutrition once she heard how much of a role it played for one of her favorite athletes and role models, Sasha Cohen. Cohen shared in an interview how changing her diet helped her overall performance, and it convinced Emily to take the initiative to fix her own diet and saw how it affected her performance as a competitive figure skater.
"I had the energy to make it through practices before high school. I had energy to make it through conditioning after school. I was getting stronger and I was placing better in competitions," Orvos said. "Seeing how much that helped me, that really sparked in me at a young age that I could help other athletes do the same."
From then on, Orvos knew she wanted to work in an environment where she could help other athletes perform at their highest potential.
Orvos volunteered at the University of Missouri in their sports nutrition department through her undergraduate and graduate studies and in 2017, she interned with the Kansas City Royals,which included spring training in Surprise, Arizona. Orvos fell in love with Arizona and knew if she had the opportunity to come back, she would in a heartbeat. When Orvos learned that she was chosen for the SNIP fellowship and that she was matched with ASU, she knew it was
meant to be.
"It's an awesome opportunity," Orvos said. "Not only for us to learn from an advanced sports dietitian, but also an opportunity to help them be able to better serve our athletes. It not only helps the athletes be better but it improves the overall sports nutrition program."
Since arriving in Arizona in August, Orvos has seen how much the growth of the Sun Devil nutrition program has helped impact the student-athletes one-on-one.
"I think just being there for them and guiding them to make the right choices to help them fuel their practices, fuel their competitions, fuel their performance to help them reach their goals has been incredibly important," Orvos said. "Once they see how much it helps them, they really buy into this and buy into why nutrition as a whole is important."
A vision in the making
In her role overseeing the entire sports nutrition department for Sun Devil Athletics, Yudell's vision she arrived on campus in 2014 has been to impact the performance of as many student-athletes as possible and to grow a program for an emerging field in the world of sports. Five years later, within the span of six months, she was able to add a second full time sports dietitian position, a sports nutrition fellow and a graduate student to her team - expanding the Sun Devil Sports Nutrition program's ability to reach and impact more student-athletes.
Yudell started her sixth season with Sun Devil Athletics this past August. After receiving a Master of Science in Kinesiology and Exercise Physiology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, she went on to hold a dietetic internship at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, as well as full-time sports dietitian positions at the University of Florida and the University of Georgia before arriving at ASU.
"When I came here five years ago, I had the goal to try to grow a department beyond just one person and what one person was able to do at that time," Yudell said. "It's been a process supported by our administration, and five years later we've added layers to build the department- which is very exciting to me. Because at the end of the day, it helps our student-athletes perform."
Yudell was also instrumental in working with the ASU College of Health Solutions to form a new sports nutrition concentration for the Master's of Science in Nutritional Science degree. This track allows students to specialize in classes geared toward sports nutrition, hydration and exercise physiology, as well as get hands-on training working with Sun Devil student-athletes and staff.
It's one of the few degree programs of its kind, offering opportunities for students looking to specialize in sports nutrition and be mentored by professionals working in the field.
Jensen Skinner, a graduate student studying in this new concentration and earning hands-onexperience working with the ASU sports nutrition program, will be part of the first class tograduate with the sports nutrition concentration in May 2020. She was eager to take part in thisopportunity, knowing that ASU is evolving with the growth of the industry, as this program is notoffered at many schools around the country.
"At a lot of schools, there's one sports nutrition class or there's one exercise and nutrition class.
So this is a unique program where you take classes in both exercise and nutrition, you're gettingthat dual education and kind of bridging that gap for people that want to go into sports," Skinnersaid.
For a young sports dietitian looking for chances to grow and earn as much possible experienceas she can before she graduates, Skinner is hopeful when thinking about the future and wherepossible careers exist in the field of sports nutrition.
"Sports nutrition is growing a lot, there's more programs that are opening up specifically for thefield and there are so many different opportunities, whether its individual training facilities, at thecollegiate level, at the professional level, even starting to look at the high school levels," Skinnersaid. "I think the field is really growing and evolving."
For Yudell, being able to expand her team and reach more student-athletes has been excitingnot only for Sun Devil Athletics, but for the growth of sports nutrition as a whole.
"When I first started in my career, sports nutrition in collegiate athletics was somewhat new andon the rise. There weren't as many full-time positions and very few training positions," Yudellsaid. "It's really exciting that here we are able to offer two really high-level training opportunitiesthat are going to prepare younger or new transitioning dietitians to become really competent insports nutrition and understand collegiate athletics."
There's a team in the Sun Devil Athletics program that doesn't count wins and losses. They don't play for a conference title or a national championship. They thrive based on helping other teams succeed, impacting student-athletes one-on-one and pushing them to perform at the highest possible caliber.
Sometimes unnoticed, one of the fastest growing fields in the sports world is also developing at Arizona State. The Sun Devil Athletics sports nutrition program has grown from one registered dietitian to four within six months - allowing the program to make an even stronger impact in the fueling, educating and recovering process for Sun Devil student-athletes.
Amber Yudell, Director of Sports Nutrition for Sun Devil Athletics, has worked hard for five years to add an additional sports dietitian position, a sports nutrition immersion fellow and a graduate student dietitian to her team. Finally, her hard work is paying off. A more individualized-approach to helping student-athletes. Every day is different and non-stop for the Sun Devil Athletics sports nutrition program. For the four registered dietitians on staff, they are divided up among ASU's 24 teams to serve more than 600 student-athletes. Each of the dietitians is responsible for the student-athletes on their assigned teams, whether that's preparing menus for performance-focused dinners offered three times a week, educating them as a team on how to balance their diet, weighing them before and after practice to gauge sweat loss, or hosting one-on-one counseling sessions.
They help student-athletes stay fueled before, during and after practices, monitor their meals, informally meet and talk with the student-athletes about their nutrition and perform body composition testing. They'll also meet with whole teams to engage in discussion about the struggles they face with maintaining a healthy diet and staying hydrated throughout the day.
Samantha Liotta, a registered dietitian who joined the Sun Devils in February, emphasizes the importance in recognizing why nutrition is so crucial to athletic performance and recovery.
"Nutrition is such an everyday part of life. We eat every day, no matter what. It becomes second nature so you don't have to think about it," Liotta said. "But these athletes, they have to think about it because it impacts their overall performance. So I try to put it into this perspective – You choose to go work out, you choose to finish that set, you choose to complete each rep and with nutrition, you have to choose to get your performance meals in to be successful."
A growing sports nutrition program allows the team to widen the breadth of student-athletes that they can serve each day. It makes them more accessible for when student-athletes have questions and presents more opportunities to be present at practices, weights, meetings and competitions. It allows the student-athletes to see the importance of how their nutrition affects their performance and can elevate the Sun Devil Athletics program to the next level.
In ASU baseball senior catcher Nick Cheema's eyes, the sports nutrition program has significantly impacted his entire team by offering healthy choices for fueling and recovery snacks, smoothies and meals.
"For the young guys just coming in and not knowing what to eat and not really being able to cook in the dorms, they get healthy options of things provided in the weight room, they get smoothies after practices and they get to eat well on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesdays," Cheema said. "It's been really helpful, especially for the younger guys."
Sun Devil beach volleyball senior Halle Johnson Pasichnuk said that having access to recovery and fueling snacks in the weight room is really helpful when facing back-to-back lifts and practices. She also appreciates the increased accessibility to reach one of the dietitians on staff and has seen it as incredibly helpful in helping her achieve her nutrition goals.
"Right after weights, I can always go pop in their office and they're always open to answer any type of questions I need or provide me with a food plan or whatever to fit my specific needs at the moment," Johnson Pasichnuk said.
For Liotta, her biggest takeaway from the growth of the sports nutrition program has been the increased level of comfort in the relationships between student-athletes and dietitians.
"Student-athletes really notice our sports nutrition program growing. With the excitement they have when they see their sports dietitian and the level of comfort they have going to their sports dietitian, I've just seen this grow immensely in the time I've been here," Liotta said. "It's making a big impact on them and the questions they ask and the knowledge that they have."
ASU chosen for competitive sports nutrition immersion program for third year in a row.
For the third year in a row, Arizona State University was chosen as one of only 10 mentor host sites in the country for Gatorade's competitive Sports Nutrition Immersion Program (SNIP).
Emily Orvos, a recent graduate from University of Missouri-Columbia's Master of Science in Dietetics, began working this fall as a fellow with Sun Devil Athletics sports nutrition to assist the team in helping ASU's 24 athletic programs.
SNIP pairs advanced sports dietitians with members of the Collegiate and Professional Sports Dietitians Association who are looking for practical, hands-on experience with elite student-athletes and programs. The program focuses on mentoring recently graduated dietitians with more advanced sports dietitians in the field and bringing new and innovative ideas to accomplished athletic programs and institutions. Other institutions that were selected as host sites for this program include the United States Olympic Training Center, the New Orleans Saints and Pelicans and the IRONMAN institute.
Orvos knew she wanted to pursue a career in sports nutrition once she heard how much of a role it played for one of her favorite athletes and role models, Sasha Cohen. Cohen shared in an interview how changing her diet helped her overall performance, and it convinced Emily to take the initiative to fix her own diet and saw how it affected her performance as a competitive figure skater.
"I had the energy to make it through practices before high school. I had energy to make it through conditioning after school. I was getting stronger and I was placing better in competitions," Orvos said. "Seeing how much that helped me, that really sparked in me at a young age that I could help other athletes do the same."
From then on, Orvos knew she wanted to work in an environment where she could help other athletes perform at their highest potential.
Orvos volunteered at the University of Missouri in their sports nutrition department through her undergraduate and graduate studies and in 2017, she interned with the Kansas City Royals,which included spring training in Surprise, Arizona. Orvos fell in love with Arizona and knew if she had the opportunity to come back, she would in a heartbeat. When Orvos learned that she was chosen for the SNIP fellowship and that she was matched with ASU, she knew it was
meant to be.
"It's an awesome opportunity," Orvos said. "Not only for us to learn from an advanced sports dietitian, but also an opportunity to help them be able to better serve our athletes. It not only helps the athletes be better but it improves the overall sports nutrition program."
Since arriving in Arizona in August, Orvos has seen how much the growth of the Sun Devil nutrition program has helped impact the student-athletes one-on-one.
"I think just being there for them and guiding them to make the right choices to help them fuel their practices, fuel their competitions, fuel their performance to help them reach their goals has been incredibly important," Orvos said. "Once they see how much it helps them, they really buy into this and buy into why nutrition as a whole is important."
A vision in the making
In her role overseeing the entire sports nutrition department for Sun Devil Athletics, Yudell's vision she arrived on campus in 2014 has been to impact the performance of as many student-athletes as possible and to grow a program for an emerging field in the world of sports. Five years later, within the span of six months, she was able to add a second full time sports dietitian position, a sports nutrition fellow and a graduate student to her team - expanding the Sun Devil Sports Nutrition program's ability to reach and impact more student-athletes.
Yudell started her sixth season with Sun Devil Athletics this past August. After receiving a Master of Science in Kinesiology and Exercise Physiology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, she went on to hold a dietetic internship at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, as well as full-time sports dietitian positions at the University of Florida and the University of Georgia before arriving at ASU.
"When I came here five years ago, I had the goal to try to grow a department beyond just one person and what one person was able to do at that time," Yudell said. "It's been a process supported by our administration, and five years later we've added layers to build the department- which is very exciting to me. Because at the end of the day, it helps our student-athletes perform."
Yudell was also instrumental in working with the ASU College of Health Solutions to form a new sports nutrition concentration for the Master's of Science in Nutritional Science degree. This track allows students to specialize in classes geared toward sports nutrition, hydration and exercise physiology, as well as get hands-on training working with Sun Devil student-athletes and staff.
It's one of the few degree programs of its kind, offering opportunities for students looking to specialize in sports nutrition and be mentored by professionals working in the field.
Jensen Skinner, a graduate student studying in this new concentration and earning hands-onexperience working with the ASU sports nutrition program, will be part of the first class tograduate with the sports nutrition concentration in May 2020. She was eager to take part in thisopportunity, knowing that ASU is evolving with the growth of the industry, as this program is notoffered at many schools around the country.
"At a lot of schools, there's one sports nutrition class or there's one exercise and nutrition class.
So this is a unique program where you take classes in both exercise and nutrition, you're gettingthat dual education and kind of bridging that gap for people that want to go into sports," Skinnersaid.
For a young sports dietitian looking for chances to grow and earn as much possible experienceas she can before she graduates, Skinner is hopeful when thinking about the future and wherepossible careers exist in the field of sports nutrition.
"Sports nutrition is growing a lot, there's more programs that are opening up specifically for thefield and there are so many different opportunities, whether its individual training facilities, at thecollegiate level, at the professional level, even starting to look at the high school levels," Skinnersaid. "I think the field is really growing and evolving."
For Yudell, being able to expand her team and reach more student-athletes has been excitingnot only for Sun Devil Athletics, but for the growth of sports nutrition as a whole.
"When I first started in my career, sports nutrition in collegiate athletics was somewhat new andon the rise. There weren't as many full-time positions and very few training positions," Yudellsaid. "It's really exciting that here we are able to offer two really high-level training opportunitiesthat are going to prepare younger or new transitioning dietitians to become really competent insports nutrition and understand collegiate athletics."