New Meal Programs Keep Ducks Well Fed, Including Walkons
By Rob Moseley
Editor, GoDucks.com
Bronson Yim’s wallet is a little fatter these days. His midsection might be, too, if not for all the running and lifting and everything else Yim does daily as a walk-on defensive back for the Oregon football team.
Thanks to new NCAA legislation and expanded offerings by the UO athletic department, Yim and other Oregon student-athletes have access to a full array of meals throughout the day.
Walk-ons around the nation are now eligible to be included in daily “training table” meals available for certain sports in-season, at no cost to them. While some schools still require that non-scholarship athletes pay for those meals, Oregon moved quickly to bring them under the umbrella of paid meals for the full team.
In addition, UO student-athletes as of this fall also have access to both brunch in the Hatfield-Dowlin Complex dining area and a boxed lunch at the Jaqua Center on campus.
Yim is a fourth-year walk-on to the football team from Hawaii, with three career game appearances to his name. His typical day now begins with a yogurt or other small item from the expanded menu of the Casanova Center’s nutrition bar, followed by brunch in the H-D Complex after practice; a sandwich from the Jaqua in the early afternoon; and then dinner with his teammates back at the HDC following team meetings in the evening.
“You save a lot of money,” Yim said. “And you get to be around the team more often. After a position meeting, you don’t just have to walk home while everybody walks down to dinner. You can go and have dinner with everybody else.”
In the past, Yim and other walk-ons could eat at training tables by paying out of pocket to do so. Now, their meals come out of the team’s budget, as do those of the student-athletes on full scholarship.
The offering of brunch and lunch for all student-athletes, plus the addition of walk-ons to the training table meals, is expected to cost the athletic department an estimated $750,000 per year, though exact costs won’t be known until after the 2014-15 academic year. That forced some belt-tightening elsewhere in the budget, but the new meal programs were made a high priority by UO administration.
Yim said all student-athletes, not just walk-ons, figure to eat healthier thanks to the new meal plan. The nutrition bars were upgraded from fluids and simple snacks to include the likes of Greek yogurt and fresh fruit; the brunch offering includes staples like eggs, bacon and sausage; and the sandwich or wrap from the Jaqua is available in a boxed lunch to go.
“Before, we might scramble and not eat lunch, just go straight to class,” Yim said. “Now we’re already (at the Jaqua Center) for tutors for the most part, so you can grab a boxed lunch and head to class.”
