Imagine a car of ostentatious excess: a V-8 engine that announces its presence with a powerful purr, heated seats, backup camera, cruise control, hands-free parallel parking, speakers fit for stadiums, a stylish interior, a glossy paint job, glamour and speed and gizmos galore.
Without gasoline, it will not go.
Without fuel — or, perhaps, an electric charge — it’s a marvelous waste of manpower and metal. It’s 4,000 pounds of missed opportunities. It’s a sailboat rusting in a windless room, a kite without a gust.
A car can’t function without fuel.
Same with a football team.
When he arrived at Washington last winter, Kalen DeBoer was inundated with input on this issue. UW strength and conditioning coach Ron McKeefery credited DeBoer for “listening to the players. That was one of the major gripes about the program, from within the program. There just wasn’t as much attention in that area as there is now.”
Enter Alison VandenBerghe.
After spending the 2022 season as the director of sports nutrition at Fresno State, VandenBerghe — a registered/licensed dietitian who earned a bachelor’s degree at North Dakota State and a master’s at Oklahoma, and interned at Oregon and performance training powerhouse Exos as well — followed DeBoer to Seattle.
She inherited a team tasked with — in McKeefery’s words — “trying to shed body fat and really lean out and make it so our movement is efficient.”
Which required commitment and creativity.
It required VandenBerghe — UW’s second-year director of football performance nutrition — to organize unique, healthy menus for each team meal, catered by specified vendors. And while UW currently serves two meals a day to its players, fall camp is coming — and the Huskies will provide 80 meals in the month of August alone.
That’s 80 individual meals, for 100 players, in a month.
Eight thousand plates … and no repeats.
“I don’t think they’ve ever had the same exact meal in one year,” VandenBerghe said. “They might have a couple duplicates, but I always add something unique to it. So even if they have pasta once a week, because they need the carbs — especially in fall camp — we might add a different sauce or a different protein, or I might sneak spinach into the sauce. So they’ll never know what’s coming at them.”
But they will be better-equipped.
This month, VandenBerghe organized a scavenger hunt at the U Village QFC — where players were tasked with finding healthy items without breaking the bank. Because players’ lives inevitably extend outside of Husky Stadium, providing meals is not enough.
“That’s where the cooking classes come in play. That’s where the cooking demos come in play,” said VandenBerghe, who provides both throughout the year. “We’ve done a knife skills class. What’s a bread knife used for? What’s a butter knife? How do you use a chef’s knife versus a paring knife? How do you cut different fruits and veggies and steak and meats?”
And how do you cram a healthy lifestyle into a student-athlete’s schedule? VandenBerghe designs her cooking classes to address those questions.
“What do they have in their dorms or apartments? A lot of times it’s just microwave, oven, maybe stovetop,” she explained. “So we utilize microwaveable rice a lot of the time, so they’re not having to buy a rice cooker or cook rice for an hour. What can they use with rice or chicken and a vegetable of some sort? We did stir-fry last year with different types of meats. We pan-fried steak and salmon. We cooked chicken in the oven. So we were learning different methods and how we could do that within 20 minutes.”
Indeed, the job demands a delicate marriage of time management and nutrition.
Hence, the smoothie system.
“Over the years, adapting to different operations and being at four or five different universities, I’ve adopted a process, and the process works,” said VandenBerghe, who uses a four-blender assembly line to mass-produce post-practice smoothies. “So I’m having my interns come in at a certain time, and [we tell them that] ‘These are the juices and liquids we’re using. These are the fresh and frozen fruits we’re using. This is how to make a smoothie so we’re not burning out our blenders, so we have them over time.’
“We have 15 different blender cups that we will spread out, and while we’re only blending four at a time, maybe we’re making the next blender. One’s blending while we’re pouring more into something else.”
The result is roughly 100 smoothies a day, all with similar nutritional value — a rotational rainbow of replenishment. During cold games and practices, VandenBerghe and Co. offer sideline hot chocolate (for carbohydrates) and chicken broth (for electrolytes) as well.
“Purple Reign” smoothie
6 ounces milk
2 ounces cherry juice
2 tablespoons avocado
1/4 cup Greek yogurt
1 scoop vanilla protein powder
1/3 cup frozen blueberries
1/4 cup frozen pineapple
2 teaspoons honey
Nutrition information: 342 calories, 24 grams, protein, 49 grams carbs, 7 grams fat
But the array of offerings doesn’t end there. The Huskies have designated drawers of daily vitamins and supplements, including two teamwide requirements (vitamin D and Omega-3 fish oil pills, the latter intended to decrease inflammation and aid recovery) and others tailored to players’ specific needs. VandenBerghe tracks daily intake of meals and vitamins and sends weekly progress reports to the coaching staff. The players track daily calorie/carb/protein intake on nutrition app Notemeal.
UW linebacker Carson Bruener said he and VandenBerghe had a lot of meetings last summer. “Because I was light after last season. I needed to put on a good amount of weight. So I was like, ‘OK, what things should I be really focusing on eating? Carbs? Proteins? How many vegetables should I eat? How should I portion out my plate?’ Because coming into college, I wasn’t great at that. I had to put on all this weight fast and it ended up not being great weight. So I was able to slim down a little bit and fit better to my body and how I want it to be.”
Added sophomore wide receiver Ja’Lynn Polk: “Last year [in 2021] we didn’t really have a nutritionist to help us stay on our nutrition with smoothies, meals. We focused on weight, but it wasn’t as big of a thing as it is now. So to have her here is really major. She’s been able to teach people how to cook, how to stay on your nutrition plan, what to put in your body.”
In turn, UW finished 11-2 in VandenBerghe’s debut — outscoring opponents 121-78 in the fourth quarter alone. With proper fuel, the Huskies flourished. And the Dawgs are doubling down.
UW’s nutrition department has grown to seven this year — VandenBerghe, a full-time nutrition fellow (who tracks players’ meals and vitamins and meets with position and strength coaches), two fuel station managers (who oversee bulk food/drink orders) and three volunteers (who receive orders, assist with smoothies and snacks).
The Huskies are even considering adding blenders.
After all, a College Football Playoff contender — like a car — needs gas to go.
“She’s done a great job of growing the department from scratch,” McKeefery said. “I always tell our athletes, you spell ‘love,’ T-I-M-E. What you love, you’ll spend time on.
“She spends a ton of time — whether it’s showing them that she cares through watching what they’re eating and giving them feedback, or creating these meal plans, or creating learning opportunities, or challenging them in different ways. She does a great job of really setting the standard there.”