Texas A&M Performance Nutrition - Providing Lessons to Last

Caring for hundreds of college student-athletes is a daunting task. When it comes to the Performance Nutrition staff at Texas A&M University, however, it's exactly what Jonathan Tanguay and Blair Hitchcock look forward to every single day. Texas A&M is blessed to have two of the best people on the job when it comes to keeping student-athletes healthy and well educated about their personal nutrition needs.
 
Jonathan Tanguay, the Director of Performance Nutrition, oversees all Aggie athletic teams with primary focus on football, men's and women's track and field, cross country, swimming and diving, men's and women's golf and softball. Blair Hitchcock serves in the role of Assistant Director of Performance Nutrition and focuses primarily on men's and women's basketball, men's and women's tennis, baseball, volleyball and soccer.
 
Tanguay and Hitchcock travel with multiple teams throughout the year and coordinate proper pre-game meals, post-game meals, and snacks. They also take on the challenge of making sure the athletes are well hydrated before, during, and after each game and practice. Needless to say, there is no 8-5 type of schedule when it comes to the Performance Nutrition staff. It's a 24/7 type of job to make sure every student-athlete is on the right track with nutrition.  
 
Jonathan and Blair go above and beyond for their respective student-athletes, offering grocery shopping tours, one-on-one counseling sessions, body composition testing, individualized meal plan creation, cooking demonstrations, and team presentations. They also oversee the ordering of food and supplies for nutrition stations around campus. Those areas, known as fueling stations, are located in several of the team locker rooms and training rooms.
 
The fueling stations come equipped with kitchen areas which are stocked with recovery products for the student-athletes. Smoothies are prepared at every station for the workout groups, as well. Providing a wide variety of healthy snacks is important to ensure that every athlete has something available that they enjoy.
 
Texas A&M is also fortunate to have the R.C. Slocum Nutrition Center, which is open to all student-athletes. Tanguay works with the chefs to plan balanced menus throughout the week, and the facility is conveniently located for the athletes to utilize. You can read more about the Slocum Nutrition Center here.
 
Meeting proper nutritional needs is extremely helpful for athletes that wish to reach certain personal health goals, and the A&M Performance Nutrition Department's work certainly does not go unnoticed. The counseling, body composition, and meal plan sessions provide student-athletes with a chance to understand more about their personal nutrition and how utilizing that knowledge will help them to attain their goals. Following these sessions, Jonathan and Blair do not simply sit back and hope for the best. They are with these students every step of the way.
 
Being present is the best way to educate the student-athletes. Tanguay and Hitchcock attend practices and weight training sessions for their specific sports. This encourages the athletes to come to them with questions they might have in regard to their nutrition. By making themselves readily available, Tanguay and Hitchcock are better able to reinforce what they have taught their student-athletes. Here is some good news. These student-athletes enhance their athletic performance with what they learn about nutrition now. Here is even better news. These student-athletes will also carry these nutrition lessons with them throughout their lives.
 
"That's the goal of what we're doing here, to not only fuel their activity and performance now, but to give them tools they can utilize when they're done here," says Tanguay. "We hope to give them things they can use throughout their life."
 
"I definitely want to help them with their performance but really I teach them for life after sport or life after college," adds Hitchcock. "Whether they still pursue their sport or not, you need to be able to go to a grocery store and shop for groceries, understand how to cook pasta, or understand what carbs, protein, or fat is, those types of things."
 
Performance Nutrition makes a huge impact, and that impact benefits every team at Texas A&M. The staff's dedication and attention to detail gives Aggie athletes lessons that will last a lifetime.