My first experience with big league athletes occurred when I was only twelve years old. One morning my father took me to eat at Wolfie’s Restaurant in Miami which was a favorite hangout for celebrities, mobsters and professional athletes back in the ’50s and ’60s.
It was known for its oversized sandwiches and as I sat gobbling up a pastrami sandwich I noticed a group of mammoth sized men come sauntering through the front door and asked my dad who they were.
He looked up at them as they passed and remarked: “Oh, that’s the Miami Dolphins.” Right then and there I realized two things.
First I thought football is a really dangerous game for I couldn’t imagine being hit by one of these monsters. I watched them order breakfast which consisted of a sirloin steak, four eggs and mounds of French fries and I thought that athletes like to eat in a big way. Man-sized appetites.
So let us spend time in this column discussing the secret eating habits of professional athletes. I think you will find it interesting. I’ve been lucky to be connected to professional athletes ever since I was a kid because my family owned horses, played golf or trained professional boxers.
The food for jockeys: Unfortunately jockeys must keep their weight below 110 lbs. which is not an easy task. The famed Laffit Pincay Jr. would often take the red-eye from California to New York to race and would travel first class.
His dinner would consist of two peanuts served to him on white china. He would break each peanut in two and then cut them in half giving him a grand total of eight tasty morsels which would be washed down with water.
Needless to say the main reason jockeys retire young is because they can no longer tolerate the food restrictions.
Food for football: An early memory I have about professional football is sitting in the mezzanine at Yankee Stadium one snowy winter Sunday watching the New York Giants play.
Sitting in front of me was Robert Goulet and Carol Lawrence. I remember how black his hair was and that both he and my father both had cute looking silver flasks that they would occasionally drink from.
Football in many ways is a brutal game played in severe weather and frequently players and spectators alike resort to numbing tactics to tolerate the pain and the cold.
Food for basketball players and long-distance runners: Charles Villanueva, power forward for the Mavericks loves fettuccine alfredo with chicken at The Cheesecake Factory but he is certainly not alone.
Almost all long-distance runners load up on carbs one to two days before a race because it allows glycogen to be stored in the muscles more readily and that helps performance.
Baseball food: Every red-blooded American knows that hot dogs and sauerkraut are a must at the ball game.
But that is not so for other nationalities. Years ago I had a Japanese intern who researched the well-known Japanese pitcher Hideki Irabu who was pitching for the Yankees at the time.
She discovered that he was most concerned about his dietary intake and how he would find good Japanese food to sustain him as he pitched.
Food for golfers: My favorite story about golf food is taken from the secret professional enclave Whisper Rock Golf Club in Scottsdale, Ariz. This gorgeous layout is set amongst the huge boulders of the Senora desert with two courses, one designed by Tom Fazio and the other by Phil Mickelson.
They have over 30 tour players as members including Jon Rahm, Phil Mickelson, Bubba Watson, Fred Couples, Martin Kaymer, Chez Reavie and Kevin Streelman. When I played there my caddie was Andrew Buckle former tour player from Australia.
In other words, this place is golf heaven. And what do these guys like to do after playing. Well they all retire to the grill room and are served a huge chocolate or vanilla milk shake. And they drink it without guilt. And you thought I was going to say they guzzle beer.
Sorry, that’s an era that is long gone.
What I have learned over the years is that all serious sports entails stress and fatigue and pain and anxiety. And it is inevitable and good that athletes manage to find ways to comfort themselves both before and after play.
Food remains one of man’s finest way to find comfort and the ones I listed above are prime examples of how the pros do it. All these methods are not necessarily the pointers their nutritionists are giving them but everyone needs to relax and indulge.
Tiger Woods may be the most disciplined athlete ever
to grace a playing field. His workout and his nutritional program were unrivaled and he singlehandedly transformed golf. You may not know this but whenever he won an event on tour he would celebrate by returning to his yacht with six McDonald hamburgers and would eat them with gusto. And the next day he went right back to work.
Such is the strange and lonely and curious life of the professional athlete.
