This summer, UTSA Athletics will be profiling its numerous areas to provide an inside look into how each unit serves Roadrunners’ student-athletes.
In this edition, we sat down with Jordan Murrin, Director of Sports Nutrition, to discuss the Sports Nutrition unit.
Q: How does your unit service UTSA student-athletes and the UTSA Athletics department?
Jordan Murrin: “We provide two main areas of services. Nutrition services, which is more of the dietician side, where we do one-on-one counseling with student-athletes, education and providing nutrition recommendations. It could be anything from creating a meal plan to doing fueling plans for practice and competition, individualized hydration plans and supplement recommendations. We provide some supplements to them, but there are some supplements that are not permissible. If an athlete doesn’t want to use something we provide and they want to get their own brand, we provide them guidance on a sports-certified brand that is permissible. Those are some of the main things we do. We’re looking at adding more services as well, including Life Skills. I’ve worked with Stefanie [Cisneros] and Margarita [Corona] and we just did a cooking class for the incoming freshman football players. I would like to incorporate some more things like that. The other side that we provide is the food-service side. We oversee the fueling stations, providing all of the fueling options, all of the snacks, pre-made smoothies, RTDs [ready-to-drink protein options] and ordering the supplements that we provide. There are a lot of different food options – we provide approximately 15 different types of snacks – those are pre-packaged items. We provide a fresh fruit cart – apples, mandarins, oranges – throughout the entire week. We also provide a variety of cold options. A lot of our options provide carbohydrates for fueling energy, but we also provide recovery-based options like healthy fats and proteins, beef jerky sticks, protein bars, trail mix, flavored peanuts, Greek yogurt, cheese sticks, fruit cups, apple sauces, bagels and Uncrustable PB&Js. We try to introduce new things and give them more variety. We’re always brainstorming new ideas and things that we want to add. We have a Gatorade machine down there that we keep stocked. Athletes love that and they use it a lot.”
Q: What makes UTSA a leader in your area?
Jordan Murrin: “There is a lot of support from administration and from coaches in wanting to provide more for the athletes from a nutrition standpoint, especially on the food-service side. When I first started, after the fall semester, we had spent a good amount of our budget. We talked with admin and the coaches about it and they gave us an added investment that we needed to supply more for the athletes. I’m educating people on the need to fuel before, during and after workouts, so it led to more usage. The administration was really responsive in supporting that. They see the benefit in providing this for all of our sports. That support really goes a long way.”
Q: Why did you decide to come to UTSA?
Jordan Murrin: “When I came in for my interviews and met with the coaches, I felt the buy-in with what they were looking for and what they thought their athletes would benefit from the most. It seemed like there was a lot of potential, especially being the first full-time person to step into this role. I do enjoy this kind of program development and building aspect of it. It has been really fun to do that.”
Q: What is the most rewarding aspect of your role?
Jordan Murrin: “When athletes are happy with the things that we do. We’ve had to make some changes to make our services efficient and effective, and to make sure that we’re providing all resources to all athletes throughout the entire day. When I’ve talked with athletes about the reasons why we’re doing what we’re doing and providing more access to these things, it kind of clicks with them. That has been really rewarding when they realize that they are getting a smoothie every single day and have access to RTDs and snacks all day long. I’m not always there doing the food service – I have student workers and volunteers who help me as well – but when I do go back there and hear that the athletes appreciate what we’re doing, that’s always really rewarding.”
Q: What is something that might surprise people about your area?
Jordan Murrin: “We’re always looking to grow. Not just from a staffing standpoint, but in what we’re providing and what we’re doing. I don’t think nutrition should be stagnant. Not only do we have to accommodate changes in research and what the best practices are, it’s also changing with your athletes. The athletes I had last year are not the same as the athletes I have this year. Whether it’s incoming freshmen or transfers coming in, that changes the whole dynamic of not only the teams, but the department, as well, and what services we provide. If you have 380 athletes, you have 380 perspectives and we’re trying to meet as many of those as possible. I think we’ve done a really great job of that. A definite shout out to our catering department with meals and being able to do that too. It’s important to be prepared to make those adjustments to provide the best service. I think that’s probably one of the most essential parts of the job.”
Q: What advice do you have for students or student-athletes who might be interested in entering into your profession?
Jordan Murrin: “Getting involved is the biggest thing. I didn’t have a chance to do it when I was in school but a lot of other sports dieticians that I’ve met with and talked with, that’s kind of the best piece of advice you always get. You have to be around, whether that’s asking questions to the person in that role or trying to figure out what the career path looks like to get there. Whether you get a paid position or volunteer, getting experience working hands-on can be really beneficial. Our field is growing by the number. We’re still pretty young. It’s really only the last 20 years that we’ve had sports dieticians and it has really exploded in the past couple of years with the deregulation from the NCAA on food and what we can provide. There’s going to be more opportunities in the future than we can even count. It’s a great field to get into. UTSA has a great dietetics program. If you want to get involved, there are options there to get involved. Even if it’s not going into being a dietician specially, there are other nutrition programs or even adjacent fields that can get you close to athletics or what I do. I think the opportunities are out there, just be prepared to look into what investment you want to make in your education since we have standard requirements that we have to go through.”
Q: What kind of educational background would someone need to work in sports nutrition?
Jordan Murrin: “For registered dietitians or registered dietician nutritionists – it’s the same credential, but we have two namings for it – we all have to go through an undergraduate degree. It has to be an accredited program through the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics. They have a credentialing body called ACEND. You have to go through one of those accredited programs. It used to be a bachelor’s degree requirement but they’ve since updated it. Now you have to have a master’s degree. The undergrad degree needs to be in nutrition, but the graduate degree doesn’t. In addition to that, you need to go through a supervised practice, which has an hour requirement. There are different programs and it’s kind of like a medical residency in a way where you’re working underneath dieticians and getting precepted in different fields within nutrition. There’s typically a clinical side, community side and food-service side. We partner with campus to actually provide a sports nutrition rotation now. You have to go through that supervised practice. I believe the requirements are now around 1,000 hours or more that you have to go through. Most of the programs are nine months up to a year. During that time, you’ll have those on-site rotations in addition to class days where you get educational experience. A lot of programs are combining those with the master’s degrees or making what we call a coordinated program where it’s all under the same umbrella. There’s a couple of different ways to go about it. I had a different path during my time. My degree was in kinesiology and psychology and then I did my master’s in nutrition and took undergrad courses as well to meet my requirements before I went off to my supervised practices. There are a lot of different pathways out there now. They are trying to make it as accessible as they can.”
Q: Why did you choose to go into this field?
Jordan Murrin: “I always knew that I wanted to work in the health field. An athletic field started to stick with me when I was doing kinesiology in undergrad. I just really enjoyed it. A lot of the things we studied were more like exercise physiology and we learned about metabolism and how the body fuels itself. That sparked my interest in nutrition. When I got into my master’s degree, that was more of a sports nutrition master’s, so I did mostly nutrition in exercise and took some electives in kinesiology, as well. I also took undergraduate classes to meet the requirements. It always pushed me towards nutrition and exercise, and that kind of fell within the framework of what a sports dietician does. I was doing a field experience in my undergrad where I met a dietician and was talking with him about what they do and I thought that sounded really interesting. Meeting someone who is in that field already really helps, especially if it’s something that you’ve never heard of. I wanted to learn more about it. For me, that’s what sparked the interest. Once I completed my supervised practice, I started looking for sports roles. I was lucky enough to get my first opportunities and just continued on from there.”