How one woman keeps the Panthers well-fed

One thing that might not surprise you about NFL players: They eat a lot, and they eat frequently.

What exactly do “a lot” and “frequently” mean? Here’s an example: A 6-foot-2, 220-pound Carolina Panther might take in about 6,000 calories in a day, over the course of nine feedings that could include several full meals and several significant snacks.

This example came courtesy of Jennifer Brunelli, the Panthers’ dietitian, who showed us a meal plan for the unidentified player.

Of course, he’s just one of 53 on the active roster. When you consider that these players range from a 5-9, 180-pound wide receiver like Damiere Byrd to 6-4, 345-pound defensive tackle like Paul Soliai – and on top of that, the fact that these guys eat two to four meals a day at their workplace – you can imagine the challenges that Brunelli faces.

But since joining the team on a part-time basis toward the tail end of the 2013 season, the former All-American swimmer at the University of South Carolina has risen to the challenge and made sweeping changes to the players’ individual relationships with food.

And she’s done it all as a part-timer, while balancing her work for the Panthers with her private practice (she owns Sports RDpro, a Charlotte-based sports nutrition, weight management, and corporate wellness practice) and her role as director of sports nutrition at the United States Performance Center, an Olympic development-program facility in Ballantyne.

Based on what we learned from Brunelli during a recent chat with her in her office at the U.S.P.C., we can say this much: It sure doesn’t seem like a part-time job.

How she landed the gig: In 2013, Joe Kenn – the Panthers’ strength and conditioning coach – was seeking more-specific guidance for the players in regards to food intolerances/allergies/sensitivities, and supplements. In his search for a clinical dietitian, he quickly connected with Brunelli, in part because her husband, Nick, was an All-American swimmer at Arizona State at the same time Kenn was head coach of sports performance for the university’s athletic department.

She typically reports to the stadium on Wednesday and Thursday mornings during the season: “When the role was being discussed,” she says, “it was more of, ‘Can we give you a call (if the players need guidance)?’ And I wasn’t super-comfortable with that,” because she didn’t feel like she could play an integral enough role without a more hands-on approach. “Now the players have confidence in saying, ‘Oh yeah, I have this question, and I know that she’ll be there on this day.’ Plus, those are also very heavy feeding days. I hate saying it like that – I feel like I sound like a weirdo – but there’s just a lot of food that goes down on those two days. So if I can be there at point of sale, if you will, then that helps me to make sure that I’m getting those questions answered when they’re actually coming up.”

One of her biggest coups was getting the Panthers to build a kitchen inside Bank of America Stadium that could make made-to-order meals for the players: The team used to graze from piles of off-the-assembly-line food kept warm for hours in chafing dishes; now there’s a full-blown kitchen with multiple chefs who “can prep, turn around, put it on the line, and keep prepping,” Brunelli says. “Everything is so insanely fresh. If so and so needs salmon, if so and so wants shrimp – if somebody has overslept and is running late and the meal has actually technically ended but needs something heavier than a PB&J – we can throw it on the grill and bring it back into a meeting room ... which we had no ability whatsoever to do before.”

She also wanted the players to be able to easily enjoy at home some of the food they like at the stadium: So she helped broker an arrangement so the kitchen gets most of its protein from Charlotte’s Meat & Fish Co., which is right down Morehead Street from the stadium. “I’ve been able to work with their owner on creating protein boxes, so if I know a guy needs extra red meat, or if I know he needs to go in a direction of a little bit more Omega-3-rich fatty-acid coldwater fish, for example, (the owner) can prep out a box for that player that they literally can bring home and all they have to do is dump it onto a pan and turn the oven on.”

She also dictates what items show up on the fueling station that gets wheeled into the locker room before every practice: Staples include gummy bears, handmade protein balls, protein bars, quartered peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches, jerkies and cut-up oranges.

She also helped pave the way for the Panthers’ new tradition of having food trucks come to the stadium for post-workout lunch on Thursdays: Visiting trucks have included Tin Kitchen, Cuzzo’s, Yummi Banh Mi, Rico’s Acai, Taco Rico and – of course – Cam Newton’s food truck, Smokn’ Aces. “It’s just to mix it up and keep it interesting,” Brunelli sais. “I was able to work with some of those chefs on those trucks, to line up with what we’re trying to do and what we serve (the players) on a regular basis.”

She also created a grab-and-go food station so that players could take meals into meetings instead of feeling like they had to inhale their food beforehand: “I saw a need for a certain group who had just such a short window of time between some things that were going on,” Brunelli says. “They really were working their butts off, (so at mealtime), it was standing at the line, shoveling, dumping the plate and Go! ... So we created a little station this year that everybody can use, but it’s geared toward this specific group.” The station includes items like grilled chicken sandwiches, grass-fed beef burgers, sweet potato fries, baked sweet potato chips, black bean chips and more. “They’re pre-wrapped, so they can grab ’em ... and we don’t create a giant mess in the meeting room for a position coach.”

She also set up a new-and-improved smoothie bar for the players at the stadium: Previously, the Panthers had access to one blender and very little stuff to put in it. Now, there are four blenders, a Blendtec Rapid Rinse Station for quick cleaning, and a host of smoothie ingredients, including blueberries, strawberries, pineapples, cherries, mangos, spinach, carrots, broccoli, bananas, yogurts, regular milk, almond milk, chocolate milk... as well as ground flax seed, peanut butter, oats, protein powders and carbohydrate powders. “It’s fun in a way to mix up the flavors and they don’t have to be totally bored,” Brunelli says, “so if I say a smoothie, it doesn’t mean they’re drinking the same thing every single day five days a week.”

Some players crave her input, some players don’t – although they eventually come around: For instance, “Greg Olsen is gonna ask 18 million questions. He is in all the way. He loves it. He wants to understand how every outside aspect impacts the game internally,” Brunelli says. “But then maybe you come across a rookie who hasn’t really had to buy into (a focused nutrition plan) yet – because they’ve gotten by doing things a certain way, or they come from a background where that really just hasn’t been a priority, or there hasn’t been the ability to have a lot of different options. Their exposure to different kinds of foods hasn’t been great. But it’s not a matter of they’re not willing, it’s the learning curve is steep.”

All the players have her cellphone number: “One could be on an off day, and I’ll get a text that says, ‘I’m at GNC, what do you think about this?’ and I get a picture ... because they can be purposeful about doing the right thing, but there’s no guarantees with supplements. ... Or, ‘I’m at dinner and I’m trying to choose between X and Y.’ Or, ‘I’m at Costco and I really want some bars for the house, which ones should I grab?’ But it’s also more-specific stuff. ‘I’m walking out of the stadium after the game, and oh my gosh, I can’t stop cramping.’ ”

Finally, here’s a good way to sum up her philosophy when it comes to the Panthers and their diets: “They get to eat so much food that it shouldn’t have to be miserable,” she says, “and they can handle so many calories that there’s just no reason for them to force something that they don’t like.” So in the end, it’s not so much that Brunelli is trying to get them to stop eating junk; it’s what foods with high nutritional value can they put in their mouths along with it?

This story was originally published October 6, 2016 at 7:52 AM with the headline "How one woman keeps the Panthers well-fed."