Not all coaching or sports moments are created equally. As someone who recently stepped away from coaching a sport, I have been writing in my journal about things I loved about coaching, but also things – little minor things – that sort of creep up on you as pain points in coaching. Maybe they aren’t so minor after all.
One of those things? Road trip food. See, in coaching, or on teams in general, you have a meal budget (if your team travels by charter or private jet, you can stop reading, this ain’t for you – this is for the real ones – you know who you are). Typically there’s a dollar amount allowed for breakfast, for lunch and for dinner. The amount of the meal starts small for breakfast and increases by dollar amount throughout the day; so, your dinner is the typically the most expensive meal you eat. Most weekends, there’s extra money for snacks and food that you have around for pre/mid/post match noshing, but for the most part you get three square meals a day when you’re on the road.
If you get per diem, you can choose how to spend that money yourself, but that’s not always an option and because athletes are cheap – I was going to say cost conscious, but I used to be an athlete and I was cheap – coaches know it’s not always best to let an 18-22 year old loose with $15. Taco Bell used to be a per diem gold mine where we could order big, but pocket the change even bigger.
One good thing is that mealtimes are pretty close to what seems “normal,” for when to eat, but working around a playing schedule can also be tricky, so you eat when you can. Even if you’re not necessarily hungry.
Breakfast has oft been touted as the most important meal of the day. The people from the breakfast marketing team have done a really great job of pounding this information into our heads since kindergarten. The irony of this meal is that when you wake up at 5:00 a.m. to get to your playing facility by 6:45 a.m. for a match that starts at 8:00 a.m. you may not be super hungry. Still, you choke down the hotel powder eggs, wobbly sausage and maybe some soupy oatmeal if you’re feeling lucky. You might grab a couple bagels, stuff them in a napkin in your backpack with a few free jelly packets for a mid-morning court side brunch. With the lowest budget amount of the day and not a lot of time to spare, you are at the mercy of the hotel breakfast. It saves time and money – two things coaches and athletes with an early morning court call are looking to save.
Maybe the most memorable team breakfast I can remember in the past seven years, was in Florida. We happened to be playing the same weekend as a NASCAR event near St. Pete’s and every decent hotel in the area was booked. We ended up at a hotel with questionable security measures, propped our luggage and any spare room furniture in front of the door, ignored the bloodstain on the window curtains as we drew them shut and hoped for the best. As morning came, we shuffled to the complimentary breakfast room, exchanged our “admit one” carnival ticket for a seat at the table and prayed away the IBS fairy who was scheming over in the corner as she watched her collection of victims gathered in the room.
We all survived and St. Pete’s is beautiful in the Spring.
Looks like we’re out of time, you’ll have to join me another day for lunch, dinner, ordering from the google doc, orders gone wrong, food allergies, lactose intolerances (hey, coach, can you just pull over right here and drop me off?), why I couldn’t have a smoothie and a sandwich, and no tomatoes on anything … ever.
Coach Tallman has been involved in high performance sports all her life. As an athlete, Priscilla played at the University of Georgia and earned 1st team All-Conference for all four years, including SEC Freshman of the Year and SEC Player of the Year. She also earned 1st Team All-America honors her junior and senior years at UGA. She went on to play on the USA National team, USA World University Games and professionally in Europe. In 2006, she was inducted into the prestigious Georgia Athletics Circle of Honor for excellence in representing her sport and the University.
Coach Tallman has also coached at the high school, club and collegiate levels as a coach and has worked with every level of sport, including professional volleyball athletes as a mindset and mental performance coach.
She combines her knowledge of Sport Psychology principals and her education in Clinical Psychology to bring increased performance as well as education and resources for mental wellness in student-athlete populations.
She has an undergraduate degree in Psychology from The University of Georgia and a Master’s Degree in Clinical Psychology from Vanguard University. Her “30 Day Champions” Journal was studied and researched by graduate students from The College of Health Solutions at Arizona State University in Spring, 2022 and has been used by over 1,000 athletes, coaches and parents.
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