WATCH: Gators Nutrition giving a new skill to the football team
“If you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day. If you teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime.” This week, Florida Gators Director of Nutrition Kelsee Gomes aimed to do the latter. Gomes held a cooking/grilling class with the Gators football team.
“We’re teaching our guys how to grill. We’re teaching them how them correct cooking temperatures, and how to make their own rubs and marinades. Sometimes the best thing that you can do is season the food the way you like it,” Gomes said. “It’s so important for them to know their way around the kitchen. To understand how to cook chicken and how to nourish and feed themselves.”
While the Gators have a great nutrition staff in place with the new coaching staff, it is an important skill for young people to learn. The team won’t always have a nutritionist to plan out and cook their meals. Learning what to eat and how to prepare it is a key skill that Gomes and the nutrition staff want each student-athlete to have.
Gomes takes the job as a teacher seriously. It’s something she says she learned from Mack Brown at North Carolina.
“I’m really big on education. I think that’s our job. I want them to understand why. We could say to you every morning like, ‘Take your vitamins,’ and you could be like, ‘Well, what’s this going to do for me.’ I think that’s always been my thing and I remember that a coach actually said that to me one time. I was like, ‘Gosh, so and so is not doing this,’ and he was like, ‘Well, if he’s not seeing the importance of it, then he’s never going to do it.’ Once he said that to me I was like, ‘You’re right, you’re right.’
Gomes returns to the Gators
Gomes was hired from North Carolina, where she was in charge of 28 sports teams. With the Gators, she just has one — Gators football.
“I love football. Football has been my dream, Gomes said during spring camp. “It’s just college athletics, I love it because it’s the part where I get to educate the guys, see them kind of coming off of high school and developing as men and then even getting to go to the next level, I think that’s just such a cool thing and then when they come back, they’re still doing some of the things that they were doing, I think it’s just awesome.”
She wasted little time when she arrived. Gomes conducted a body-mass scan on all the Gators to find their fat vs. lean mass ratios. She then consulted with the strength coaches, position coaches, and training staff to come up with individual meal plans.
Gomes has been a hit with her new team. Gervon Dexter tweeted his support for Gomes back in March.
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