Posted Sept 3, 2009
They run out to the driveway with plates of food. They drive by practice fields with dinner-packed coolers.
They might eat dinner at 3 in the afternoon or 11 at night.
And they try to avoid the fast-food drive-through lane like it’s a tag at second base.
When Charlotte-Mecklenburg Schools start next week, everybody’s schedule rachets up. But nobody rachets like the families of student athletes. Especially with multiple children playing multiple sports, they balance good nutrition for the family athletes with schedules that would overload a roomful of Palm Pilots.
“I have no time for anything,” admits Jeff Huggins, who lives in the Mountain Island Lake area. He’s a coach himself, of the CoulOak Little League All-Stars team that recently won the statewide tournament and went to the regionals in West Virginia.
School wasn’t even back in session and we had to catch him in the car, where he was getting his daughter lunch at 2:40 p.m. so she’d have time to digest it but still not get too hungry before her own two-hour practice was over at 8:30 p.m.
With two of his four kids at home and playing five sports between them, he’s actually looking forward to school, when sports night drops from six nights a week to four.
“Our goal is to have dinner at home,” he says. “You’re just trying to keep up, not get ahead.”
You think that sounds busy? Rene Madrid, who lives in Apex near Raleigh, has six kids, five still at home. All play travel-league soccer — and in soccer, there is no off-season.
Many nights, she packs up dinner and meets her husband at a field where he’s waiting through two practices.
“I literally open the car door and say, ‘Here’s your dinner, here’s the boys.'” Then she takes off to drive someone somewhere else.
Trying to eat healthy
The real irony, of course, is that these are families who understand how important it is for kids to be active and get exercise. But practices and games usually fall right at dinner, which is hard on nutrition.
On the CoulOak team in Charlotte, other mothers call Jennifer MacDonald “the queen of the Crock Pot.” With son Kullen, 13, playing baseball and football and daughter Faith, 11, involved in running, MacDonald has made it a mission to make sure her kids sit down and eat dinner.
“We are very adamant about having a family dinner,” she says. “We want to have a well-balanced meal and stick with family time. If it means we eat at 3:30, we eat at 3:30.”
It’s easier because she doesn’t work outside the home. But she tries to help other team families, too. She calls one player her “pseudo-son,” and she gets as many as five or six players around her table.
She’ll dish up spaghetti and a salad — or one of her favorites, chicken breasts cooked in a slow cooker with a bottle of barbecue sauce, then served on buns with provolone.
“There’s not many kids that won’t eat that, and it can be wrapped in foil if need be.”
Jeff Huggins’ wife, Angela, has recently discovered her kids like the whole grain quinoa, which she cooks in chicken broth and tops with sauteed chicken and broccoli.
“I can search healthy recipes all day and give it to my kids, but that doesn’t mean they’ll eat it,” she says. “But as they get a little older and they understand how important sports are, they’re understanding the importance of staying hydrated and getting something good in their system.”
Promoting awareness
The people who work with sports programs are understanding it, too. In Raleigh, Laura Aiken is director of Advocates for Health in Action, a community effort that promotes for health issues.
The big effort: healthier team snacks. The group put together lists of game snacks that are as cheap and convenient as the 12-pack bags of 100-calorie cookies handed out at so many games.
“In time, it will be odd to bring junk food instead of odd to bring fruit,” she says. “It’s a cultural change we’re trying to make.”
In Charlotte, CMS athletic director Vicki Hamilton is organizing a summit on nutrition for student athletes at Johnson & Wales University on Oct. 14.
Sponsored by JWU and the Charlotte Regional Sports Commission, it will feature retired Panther Mike Rucker and JWU chef Peter Reinhart. They’ll bring in 120 to 150 students and coaches for a day of cooking demonstrations and nutrition lessons.
CMS has focused on spreading the word about staying hydrated. Now, Hamilton says, it’s time to focus on the link between good food and sports performance.
Her favorite lesson: Taping 49 sugar packets to the top of a sports drink, to show the 49 grams of sugar most of those bottles contain.
Hamilton says she sees some kids bring healthy snacks, like fruit, to eat between school and practice — but not many. Even teams that take high school players for a pre-game meal need help. She once went with a team to a buffet restaurant before a game.
“It was country-style steak, fried chicken, lots of food that took a lot of time to digest. And there was no guidance on what they should be steering toward on the buffet.
“Wonder if that has any impact on the kid as they’re going into the third quarter of the football game?”
Even after the game or practice is over, there are tough decisions. Families often head for a restaurant to socialize and get the kids fed. Do that after every game, and the cost adds up.
Jeff Huggins laughs about the downside of having a spouse who is organized enough to have dinner ready no matter when.
“The hard part is, at 8:30 at night after practice, I’ll say ‘Let’s go to Sports Page (with the team).’ And she’ll say, ‘No — I have dinner ready.'”
Date: Aug 19, 2009
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Copyright © 2009, The Charlotte Observer, N.C.