Food & Dining Inside
Dietitian feeds Milwaukee Bucks
Slam dunk job: Dietitian feeds Milwaukee Bucks,
Sometime during culinary school, Shawn Zell realized — though he loved to cook — that he couldn’t see himself at 55, working as chef in a restaurant. ❚ So he shifted his focus to nutrition. ❚ And now, at 29, he has his “dream job.” As he put it, he’s responsible for everything the 17 Milwaukee Bucks players eat and drink, from the time they show up for training camp in September until the season ends in spring. ❚ Morning, noon and night, weekdays and weekends, at home and away. ❚ And the goal? Nothing less than better performance on the court, translating to more wins, making for happier coaches, fans and owners.
If that sounds more arduous — not to mention stressful — than cooking for a room full of well-heeled diners, that’s not how Zell sees it. “I’m truly blessed to be part of this,” he says.
Hired at the start of the 2015 season, Zell was the first full-time dietitian in the NBA. With his culinary degree, he has the distinction of also being a chef. That matters when you’re trying to get young players (average age: 24) to eat healthier and embrace new foods.
“What we’re trying to do is fuel the players with all the right foods they should be eating, but also make them taste great so the players seek them out,” explained Troy Flanagan, director of performance for the Bucks and Zell’s boss.
Each year the program expands, and Flanagan — who hired Zell — says it’s made a difference: “I’ve seen a noticeable change in energy levels on the court.”
For the first two years, Zell and his crew fed the team from a 75-year-old kitchen that they found and rehabbed at the Cousins Center, where the Bucks previously trained.
Now, in the Bucks’ brand new training facility in the Froedtert and Medical College of Wisconsin Sports Science Center at N. 6th St. and W. Juneau Ave., catercorner from the new arena under construction, they work out of a roughly 1,000-square-foot kitchen that Zell largely designed.
The state-of-the-art space includes a pizza oven, a double-stack combination oven that can steam, smoke and roast; a grill and griddle, a large soup kettle, four induction burners and more.
“We have the greatest kitchen in professional sports,” Zell said as he showed off the facilities last month, days before training camp began.
This is where, for breakfast, the players can choose omelets to order; for lunch, make selections from sprawling hot and cold buffets (and sometimes get grain bowls or stir-fry to order). After practice, from the nearby “fuel bar,” they grab their daily “recovery smoothies,” along with their nutritional supplements. There’s also a create-your-own sandwich station and a cooler with healthy cold snacks such as yogurt and hard-cooked eggs.
And at the end of the day, the players all leave with a take-home dinner.
“We serve the guys just under 1,400 meals a year,” Zell said, adding that coaches and staff also eat there — more than 60 people in all.
The kitchen is open — by design — to the players’ lounge, allowing for interaction between Zell’s staff and the players.
“There’s something to be said for handling someone’s food,” Zell explained. “That relationship you develop with someone by feeding them, it builds trust.”
And the players do trust him. Over the summer, point guard and 2017 Rookie of the Year Malcolm Brogdon was on the phone with Zell once or twice a week from his Washington, D.C., apartment, asking what he should and shouldn’t eat.
Thanks to Zell’s advice, he lost 7 pounds. “I have more energy, I sleep better, I know what times to eat,” Brogdon said.
“I listen to him,” he said of Zell. “He’s the expert. I didn’t know there were grains that were not just carbohydrates but that also have protein. Every day I learn with Shawn.”
At the Bucks’ media day, Brogdon told reporters he was “eating cleaner” and that he felt he was “in the best shape I’ve ever been in.”
Zell’s foray into sports nutrition began with a sixmonth internship with a sports training facility in Phoenix. While still a dietetics student at Saint Louis University (in his hometown), he went to work for the then-St. Louis Rams, where he built a nutrition program from scratch, feeding three to four meals a day to 200-plus people.
“The amount of food we served in football was insane,” Zell said. “In football, you’re feeding the masses. In basketball, you’re feeding individual players.”
Indeed, each Bucks player, from Giannis Antetokounmpo to D.J. Wilson, has an individualized nutrition plan, accounting for the player’s position, frame size, need for weight gain or loss, goals, performance issues such as cramping, both micro- and macro-nutrient needs and deficiencies based on blood tests.
Even beverages are individualized. Each player has his own “hydration prescription,” based in part on lab tests done on the players’ sweat. Zell revels in the science of it all.
“As a registered dietitian, I’m able to make evidence-based interventions with these guys that are based on science, not just fads or what’s on the internet,” he said.
But food is more than the sum total of the nutrients it provides. There’s an emotional connection as well. Recognizing that is key to getting players to try new foods, like quinoa or kale.
“We try to take comfort food the guys are all familiar with and put a healthier twist on it,” Zell said, “to make it more nutrient-dense that will help their performance on the court.”
But healthier versions of Alfredo sauce and mac and cheese are just the beginning.
“We do any type of cuisine here,” Zell said. “We’ve got guys from LA, Greece, Chicago, Southern California, Texas. One day we’re doing gumbo and the next day brisket or gyros. We try to bring a bit of home to them.”
On that day in September, the buffet theme was Hawaiian. Buffet selections included poké with raw ahi tuna (raising eyebrows for at least one player), hulihuli chicken, kalua pork, tri-colored Swiss chard, grilled pineapple, rice, Hawaiian sweet rolls, Sriracha pasta salad and something called Power Slaw.
Some days the mealtime music is even coordinated to the theme of the meal. “We have some fun,” Zell said. “This is a great environment here with the coaches, staff and players bonding over food.”
And always, there is education. Pineapple is good for recovery. Cherry juice before bed will help you sleep.
Zell teaches the players not only about specific foods but also new approaches to eating: “We talk about timing. You need certain nutrients at different times of day. It also depends on whether it’s a practice day, game day or recovery day. A huge piece of what we do is on the education side.”
The Bucks are the second youngest team in the NBA. When it comes to Zell’s efforts, that’s not a bad thing, according to Flanagan.
“I think it’s easier, to be honest,” he said. “The players aren’t really set in what they want to eat. They’re quite moldable at this age.
“Some players will 100% stick to what we recommend and others will incorporate their own likes and dislikes,” he added. “But when it’s all provided for you, it’s pretty convenient. The buy-in from players has significantly improved.”
He gives credit to Zell. “He’s really good at persuading them not to have foods that aren’t the best choices and to try alternatives. He’s really good at winning over the players and getting them interested in nutrition.” What about when the team is on the road? With constant travel and little time to rest, “the NBA schedule is one of the most grueling in professional sports,” according to Zell. In a four-day period this week, the team has games in Milwaukee, Charlotte and Detroit. Zell and his staff have that covered, too. When the team leaves Milwaukee, “we prepare meals (for the flight) and take them to the airport,” he said. “That’s new this year.”
For flights originating in other cities, they work with local catering companies to prepare meals-to-go. They contact the Bucks’ hotels in advance to coordinate meals during their stay, providing them with menus and recipes. They send travel bags and snack bags to the arenas. And Zell scopes out restaurants. The team already has a list of recommended places to eat out in Milwaukee. Zell’s goal for this year is to look at all 27 cities the Bucks play in and prepare a guide to restaurants near the hotel where they should eat.
But his efforts to improve the players’ diets don’t even stop there. He’s done walk-throughs in grocery stores with some players to help them stock their fridge and pantry at home.
“I took Thon (Maker) to Whole Foods one time and said, ‘this is good for you. This is good for you for snacking. …’ They’re all very competitive people. They don’t get to this level unless they’re competitive. I tell them this is part of being competitive.”
He’s also given some players cooking lessons, according to Flanagan.
“And for players’ partners as well,” he said. “Quite often they’re the people providing food at home. Educating the families is just as important as the players.
“When possible, we feed them breakfast, lunch and dinner, but it’s not always possible, and then there’s the off-season. So it’s really good to give them some skills to go away with.”
With “so many hats to be worn,” the job comes with challenges, even with a staff that includes another chef, a dietetics student and a dietetics intern. And the hours are long.
“We’ll stay here as long as we can on a given day to be sure a player gets dinner,” Zell said, adding: “I have a very patient wife.”