Insufficient Funds

Athletes are often easy to identify in a crowd--whether because their heads giraffe eight inches over everyone else or because they are dressed in drag at a tailgate. Their differences are more internal than what is obvious, however.

Athletes require higher hydration, more nutrients--because of elevated calorie-burning levels--and a particular time distribution and composition of calories, says Dietitian for Student Health Franca Alphin. But is Duke making sure that its athletes are meeting those needs?

"I think that athletes need to realize that our bodies are different from the average student, and we need our muscles in order to play," women's lacrosse player Kate Kaiser says.

"To have those muscles and athletic bodies, we have to make sure that we are getting the proper nutrients and enough calories. Eating properly is one part to being a successful and talented athlete," she explains.

To make sure athletes have that opportunity, Duke takes several approaches. Alphin consults with all the teams at least once a year before their respective seasons and meets with some athletes individually throughout the year.

High-revenue sports like football and both men's and women's basketball have training tables, where athletes eat free nutritious meals at least four days a week. And plans are in the works to convert classrooms in Card Gym into a dining area for the two basketball teams, says men's basketball coach Mike Krzyzewski.

Most importantly, athletic scholarships include a supply of free food points--up to 1,900 points, or dollars, a semester for full-scholarship athletes living on West Campus.

"[Nutritional needs] differ from sport to sport and position to position," Alphin says. "A lot of sports, like lacrosse, are high-intensity, but not all of them have training tables. Ideally everyone would get one."

"I am all for gender equity, however, I think the way that Title IX is designed is absolutely ludicrous," men's tennis player Michael Yani wrote in an e-mail. "Just about every girl on the tennis team is on full scholarship and gets 1,900 points per semester. I don't think I could eat all of that even if I ate three meals a day, every day on campus."

On the other hand, Yani says, he always exceeds his food point allotment.

Even athletes who receive more substantial aid can run out of what they are given. The women's basketball team, for instance, provides training tables and full scholarships, giving freshman members 550 points and those on Central Campus--most of the team--880 points plus a check for $218 toward additional food expenses. Still, says basketball player Iciss Tillis, all the team members consistently run out of points and having more food points would help them eat enough food and make healthier food choices.

"It is really important for athletes to eat correctly, and to eat healthily is actually quite expensive," Tillis says. "Ideally, I would eat good fish, vegetables and pasta every day from somewhere like George's [Garage], but that gets expensive. So I often settle for a burger and a soda like everyone else."

Yani, the men's tennis player, says he acts as his "own nutritionist" but would like more guidance from professional nutritionists and a training table with healthy options.

"I think our nutritional needs are very different than that of regular students--McDonald's doesn't cut it," Yani notes.

"Once in a while, I guess it's OK, but it really doesn't do anything good for the body--especially if you eat it right before practice, believe me!" he continues. "Every time I expend energy during practice, on the court or in the weight room, I am breaking my body down. The proper nutrients help to replenish my body and help it to grow better and faster."

Not everyone agrees that athletes have special nutritional needs. Men's tennis coach Jay Lapidus says tennis players use fewer food points during the season because the team often travels and the team budget covers meals on the road.

"I'm not convinced there has to be that much of a difference between what athletes need and what normal college students need to eat," Lapidus says. "There are normal guidelines I think all college students, including athletes, should follow."

Unlike most athletes, wrestlers often need fewer food points than the University's lowest dining plan offers so they can stay within strict weight brackets, says wrestling coach Clar Anderson. His athletes can face additional costs due to their insistence on healthy choices.

"Some prescribe to a particular diet and feel that their options on campus are somewhat lacking since cafeteria food tends to be fatty-based," Anderson says. "They pay [the minimum dining plan] and don't get to use all their food points. It's frustrating."

Anderson encourages his team to live in off-campus housing, where he says they have better control of their lives and diets, and is concerned that the new residential policy of living on campus three years may hurt the health of his team. The team's only assistance with food comes when it is traveling, usually in the form of a meal at Subway or healthy groceries.

Athletes must also balance college pressures to be slim and eat less with the individual demands of their sports. Kerstin Kimel, coach of the women's lacrosse team, which provides pre-game meals and some sort of scholarship to 19 of its 33 team members, says her athletes have not had major eating issues, but she has sent some of them to Alphin on occasion for nutritional guidance. She says common injuries from the sport, like stress fractures and other bone injuries, can be attributed largely to poor nutrition.

"Our girls really need to eat a lot and well to help prevent them from getting sick and injured," Kimel says. "They need a well-rounded diet, which can be hard on college campuses.... There can be a lot of pressure on girls in college, and especially at a school like Duke, to eat and look a certain way, which often is different from what they need to be a healthy athlete."

All that adds up to an imperfect system where athletes often spend more on food because of the nutritional demands of their sport. Of course, whatever assistance athletes receive is more than the average Duke student gets. And perhaps there is only so much that the University can be responsible for. After all, says men's soccer coach John Rennie, eating habits are largely determined before athletes arrive at the University.

"How well an athlete eats has very little to do with Duke athletic programs," Rennie says. "It has more to do with how they have been eating all their lives and the education process about nutrition they have had before college."