By Charlie Vannatter
The dining facility is silent before the players arrive, but he is already at work, mapping out meals, calculating nutrition, and preparing to guide athletes one crucial meal at a time, so they can compete at the highest level.
Scott Sehnert is the director of sports performance and sports dietitian for the Dallas Cowboys in the National Football League. He has completed 10 seasons with the Cowboys.
“I work with our chefs to design menus that help our players perform at their best and recover from that performance based on our training schedule throughout the week,” Sehnert said. “… I help athletes understand the best ways to fuel their body based on their needs of position and body weight goals. And I build relationships with the players.” \
Sehnert was a four-year varsity starter football player from 1994 to 1997 at Delta and went on to play during his freshman year at Ball State University.
During that time at Ball State he worked with the strength and conditioning coach as part of a varsity program. He thought that he wanted to be a strength and conditioning coach after college, but he took a different path.
“After quitting the football team the spring semester of my freshman year, I was no longer around that strength coach and that profession and so I lost interest in it,” Sehnert said. “I took two years of core classes, but remained interested in health and sports. Then I read an article about an NFL player seeing a sports nutritionist to prepare for the season, and that’s what sparked my interest in the profession.”
One of the biggest struggles that Sehnert faces as a sports nutritionist is that the public has easy access to “experts“ in areas of nutrition.
“So many people will run with any idea around nutrition and supplementation because (those ‘experts’) can be very convincing,” Sehnert said.
Sehnert’s NFL opportunity sprouted from his experience in the college setting.
He spent 10 years at the collegiate level working with the teams at Michigan State and Auburn. He also helped design Auburn’s dining facility.
Sehnert said that when the Cowboys were looking to hire someone, they wanted that dietitian to have experience with a dining complex because they were building their first dining facility within their new practice center. His experience at Auburn helped him get the Cowboys’ job.
Sehnert is at the Cowboys’ facility for every meal.
“I will coach them up from the plate so to speak and help them know what they need based on their body weight and position,” he said. “I help them set goals to help them perform at their best while reaching ideal weight for themselves.”
He also works with some of the other staff.
“I meet with performance coaches and athletic trainers to help ensure our players are training at a level to help optimize their performance and how to recover from that,” he said.
Sehnert is at every Cowboys’ home and away game.
“I coordinate pregame meals and nutrition at the stadium before and during halftime and after the games,” Sehnert said. While the game is being played he helps the players stay hydrated by using fluids and sports foods.
Sehnert lives in Dallas with his wife, his 16 year old son and his 14 year old daughter.
Athletic director Lynde Bratton went to Delta High School with Sehnert and said that he was a good friend.
“He was nice to everybody, an incredible football player, smart, and just a good friend to everyone,” she recalled.
Assistant principal Chris Overholt was a freshman on the varsity Delta football team while Sehnert was a senior. He said that Sehnert was a great guy in high school and that he was friends with everybody, so it doesn’t surprise Overholt that Sehnert is working in the NFL.
Sehnert said that he loves the idea that he gets to continue what his high school experience was like.
When Sehnert was in high school he wanted to be a coach and help kids like he was helped.
Coaches helped him with the development of relationships and the ability to challenge him to be a better man than he already was.
Although Sehnert wasn’t able to fulfill his wish in helping high schoolers, he is still able to help out older athletes in a different way.
