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Skip to: Adam Ledyard: Life comes at you fast
March Motivation: Form healthier habits, even during cross-over seasons
Gathered and organized by Robert McKinney, Willamette Assistant Athletics Director, Communications and Mary Beth Challoner, University of Toronto, Manager, Events & Marketing. Both are members of the CoSIDA Professional Development and Education Committee and Challoner also is on the CoSIDA Executive Board.
In the ever-changing and demanding communications world, college athletic communications professionals dedicate tremendous time every day, morning until evening, week after week when their teams are in season. It can be a mentally, emotionally, and physically demanding schedule. As a result, it's important that we all prepare in advance and develop techniques and strategies that will allow us to maintain a work-life balance, eat well, and stay healthy.
We've gathered advice and ideas from current and former sports communications pros to provide you with some ideas — and motivation — as you work toward developing your own list of healthy habits to adopt and propel you through the demands of your schedule.
Planning and time management
Ryan Goff – Formerly of Lewis & Clark College (Oregon), freelancing Spring 2022
Acknowledge and accept that time is finite. Create a schedule that blocks off time with your goals in mind. Include blocks for family, personal time, and health. When unexpected things come up, decline them if you can, but if you can't, then don't delete the (important) things you already have on your calendar.
Mary Beth Challoner – University of Toronto (Ontario, Canada)
Set a phone alert for those 10-15 minutes where you get up and move away from the computer – walk, stretch, move around; anything but sitting. This helps with blood flow, joint and muscle stiffness/pain amongst other things.
Healthy and wise eating/drinking
Ali Paquette – Middlebury College Assistant Director of Athletic Communications (Vermont)
Plan out your meals the week before and have "staple" recipes. We always plan out five meals with one being a big salad, and at least two being big meals that will have leftovers. Both my husband and I work in athletics, so our schedules are all over the place and there is nothing worse than having an empty fridge and being hangry. Include snacks in your planning!!!
If you can go into the office later on game days, even if it's just an hour later than usual, do it. This allows time to have a good breakfast or lunch and gives you more time to also pack food for dinner.
If you can't go in later, then take time away from work to eat a meal during the day. This means, not eating while you work … just eat your meal. Sometimes for me this is about an hour or two before tip-off, when everyone is in the venue and I sneak back to my office and just eat dinner alone. The quiet is actually so nice right before a big game.
Ali Paquette taking a break outside with her dog.
Mary Beth Challoner – University of Toronto (Ontario, Canada)
I can add a few pieces to support Ali's tips as the planning and meal prep outlined in the first part are great and are key.
I bring a healthy snack to the office so when you're feeling low energy you can grab a granola bar, some nuts, yogurt or fruits (bananas, apples and oranges).
If you need to, set a timer for a meal or snack. It's a quick reminder to eat before you are starving and reach for the closest thing.
Do your best to eat before the game and carry a protein bar with you in case you get caught up and can't make it back to your office area for dinner.
Robert McKinney – Willamette University (Oregon)
Buy pre-cooked foods at the supermarket deli to eat later, such as grilled chicken or cooked salmon, that are healthier but take very little time to reheat. It's great for someone who's single like me.
I've found single-serving containers of vegetables that are very affordable and can be heated quickly without leftovers (sometimes, they are actually pretty big single-servings, so I eat more vegetables at one time).
After many years of eating late after working basketball and other events at night, I've started to eat before a basketball doubleheader begins, or go out to eat right afterward and then focus on the game recaps, etc. I find that I'm more engaged and energetic at the games if I've already eaten.
These plans don't always work out, so I still have fast food and less healthy food some of the time. I think it's also good to know that just because you don't eat healthily or on time once or even on a few occasions, it doesn't mean that you have to give up on the process. You can still work at doing better.
Pacific Lutheran's Mark Albanese qualified for, and ran, the 2018 Boston Marathon which was the 122nd in history.
Mark Albanese – Pacific Lutheran University Director of Sports Communication (Washington)
One gameday tip I have: I always make sure to meal plan the week and make sure I have leftovers to take in for dinner on a day I'm working a home event. That way I don't have to resort to grabbing something at the last minute that may not be as healthy. It also saves money which is a nice side benefit.
Laurie Bollig – CoSIDA Director of Membership Engagement
Drink water! I recently read
Atomic Habits by James Clear. I've seen others talk about the book, so I had to find out what it was about. I'm trying to drink more water every day. I've built a little system for myself to encourage it using Clear's four laws of behavior. It's a little thing, but as the book says, there are no little habits.
Frank Mercogliano – University of New Mexico Assistant AD for Communications
When my wife and I (and our youngest daughter as well) decided to lose some weight, we actually went with Weight Watchers and paid for the app, which helps all of us track our points. While it's great and certainly from a statistician's and numbers perspective makes things easier (it boils everything to a point value, which really makes a lot of sense to my brain), the biggest thing we have done is food prep on Sunday so that we can eat healthy during the week.
On Sunday, we prepare as much food as we think we will need for the week, so we grill and pan-sear a lot of chicken breasts, shrimp, turkey meatballs or turkey meatloaf. We also prepare a host of vegetables like corn, broccoli, mashed potatoes and the like. Everything then goes in the refrigerator and we can make our lunches (and in some cases, dinner) the night before, and just take them to work and heat them up.
Being a SID it's so easy and convenient to just run into a fast food restaurant drive-through and go "I'll get a double cheeseburger and a large fry", and honestly, if you did that once a week, you'd be just fine. But, you have a crazy week with a lot of events and you do that five times due to lunch and dinner, and that's where it all catches up to you. Having your food already done makes it really easy and allows you to eat a little healthier.
If you can't meal prep, two things we can all do is cut down on snacking and drink lots of water. So many people in our office have the little candy dishes with fun-size M&M's and Snickers and the like. Well, you eat one fun-size thing and it's not bad, but they are so small, and one isn't enough, right? You end up eating 10 or so and all of a sudden it's YOU that is decidedly not-fun sized ... Cutting out all the chocolates and snacks, drinking a lot of water (at least 64 ounces) are probably the easiest things you can do if you can't meal prep.
Recipe: Greek Quinoa and Avocado Salad
Don Hammack – Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College Sports Information Director
It's really easy and really good. It's originally from a Better Homes & Gardens cookbook, but I've made some modifications to simplify it. This is a pretty portable meal idea because you can just throw it into a container and eat it without heating it up. You can just bring a sliced avocado with you and slice that up wherever you are.
Add some grilled meat, and it will be a full meal.
Ingredients:
1 package (8oz) of microwave-ready quinoa (original recipe called for ½ cup uncooked quinoa that you'd cook yourself, but the little packets are super easy)
2 Roma tomatoes, seeded and chopped finely
1 small red onion, chopped
2 tablespoons lemon juice (you can squeeze your own, but I'm lazy and just use bottled lemon juice)
2 tablespoons olive oil
½ tablespoon salt
Baby spinach leaves
2 ripe avocados
1/3 cup crumbled feta
Directions:
Microwave the quinoa packet or make the quinoa.
Chiffonade some of the spinach leaves. (Chiffonade is a fancy word for stacking some leaves together, rolling them like a cigar and then cutting them into slices.)
In a bowl, stir quinoa, tomato, spinach chiffonade and onion to combine.
In a small bowl, whisk lemon juice, oil and salt. Add it to the quinoa mixture and stir it to coat.
Put additional whole spinach leaves on a plate. Cut an avocado in half, remove the seed and peel, then slice. Arrange those on top of the spinach, then top with quinoa mixture. Sprinkle feta on top.
The recipe says it makes four main-dish servings, but my super-fit wife and I usually can't contain ourselves and plow through the whole thing in a setting. The whole recipe is about 1,300 calories, so judge what you want to eat.
For more recipes, find the #health-wellbeing channel on the CoSIDA Slack Community |
Mental and Emotional Wellness
Brian Hand – Conference Carolinas Assistant Commissioner for External Relations
I've had a long journey back to fitness. I'm a former soccer player, but after numerous knee and ankle surgeries, I really kind of always let myself just do enough after that. Basically, I always tried to never get too big, but keep myself in a range. When COVID changed all of our lives completely I decided that I needed to do something serious.
Before the start of the 2020 CoSIDA Fitness Virtual Challenge, on May 31, 2020 I decided to try and walk a mile each day for six months. I also started eating better and for the first few weeks even did a cleanse. From there I tried to eat better and after six months decided to try and make it a year. By this time, I was up to two miles a day. Once I got to a year, I tried to average even more miles. In 2021 I averaged walking 3.5 miles a day. That did not mean I always went that far, but I never walked less than 1.5 miles per day. I am now getting close to two years straight of doing this. I treat it as a challenge to myself. Some days are incredibly hard, particularly in the winter, but I love having something bigger than myself to strive for daily.
I treat this routine like a game by telling myself I have to do my daily walks to keep up the streak. For example, when it snowed 5-6 inches recently, I still made sure to get in the walk just because I felt like I had to. Not for anybody else,
but for me. Nobody else is making me do this. Just me. That always makes it easier when you realize it's about you and not trying to better yourself for anybody else but yourself. Obviously, I am trying to for my family and children too, but my mental health is better when I worry about what I can control.
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| Brian Hand averaged 3.5 miles per day in 2021. Through December 2021, Hand also impressively had walked every day for 20 straight months – and continues on. |
Ali Paquette – Middlebury College
Do one thing every day that is for YOU. The one thing I do every night is I put my phone away when I get into bed and I read. This is the one time of day when I can disconnect and just take some time before going to sleep. Other things I have done each day (or tried to) are working out and calling friends. In the winter, I usually have a puzzle going in our home office. Sometimes just going in there for 15 minutes without my phone is the recharge I need.
Don't compare your physical and emotional journey to anyone else. We are all on our own paths. Everyone has to make the best decision for themselves. Have a plan that feels right for you.
Exercise and Workouts
Ira Thor – New Jersey City University Senior Director of University Communications and Media Relations
My advice is to find a program or a workout that works for you. It doesn't need to work for anyone else except you. You need to find something that you will be motivated to do, consistently.
One of my New Year's resolutions was to be more deliberate about fitness but on my own terms. I'm a realist. I know what routines I will and will not do. I needed something that will motivate me to fight off this "dad bod" I'm cultivating. I wanted to find something that was more of a fun, interactive, full-body workout that would not take up a lot of time.
All the research I did pointed to rowing. While it was pricey ($2,300 paid for with freelance SID funds), I purchased a Hydrow rower. It's for your upper body, core and legs. Not only are their instructors fun and motivating, but there is a whole community with which to interact. And, for someone like me who is competitive, the metrics and leaderboard push me.
Don Hammock – Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College
I have turned into an early-morning walker to get my fitness in. My knees and ankles won't cooperate with running, so I do about 3.5 miles in an hour, six days a week or so. I have about a 40-minute commute to and from work. I wake up at 5:30 a.m. and I'm out the door by 6 a.m. after drinking some water and taking care of other morning necessities. When I'm done, I'm ready to go. There are some mornings after late nights at work where it feels like a struggle to get up that early, but I'm usually able to do it.
If I'm struggling at work, I'm a proponent of a quick nap, and I stress the word "quick"! I have my quiet spots in my building where I can drag my pillow and blanket and get 15 minutes of shut-eye. That really recharges my battery. I can't go longer or it's counterproductive.
An Overall Look at Healthy Habits
The suggestions we've included can be a great start for any of us in the SID profession. Find one, two, or several of the suggestions and begin your own journey toward being mentally, emotionally, and physically healthy. Add your own ideas that will help you get through normal days as well as the busiest days. As you build your own list of healthy habits and tips, you will be able to gain control over situations in your life and improve your health while easing your mind and emotions.
When you can, feel free to interact with other SIDs who can share your tips and share their tips with you.
Utilize the CoSIDA community-related and membership connection options available which include:
Adam Ledyard: Life comes at you fast
by Adam Ledyard – East Texas Baptist University, Assistant Athletics Director - Communications
Life can be turned upside in a moment. My life was turned around in September 2021 when I was diagnosed with COVID and seriously ill, I was sent to the hospital and admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU). Up to that point in my life, I thought I was "somewhat" healthy but that was absolutely all in my mind. I ate all the free food at sporting events, fast food on the road, but walked maybe one time a week. To me, I thought that was healthy.
September 27, 2021 will be a day that changed my life as my right hand went numb and I couldn't walk to the other room without breaking a sweat. That day I was admitted into ICU with major COVID issues that ended up being blood clots on my lungs and in my hand. By the grace of God I am alive; a week later, I checked out of the hospital. Five months down the road, I am almost 40 pounds lighter and much healthier now.
My cardiologist told me in the hospital that I was one in 200 to survive the blood clots. That moment woke me up.
I knew at that time that I had to really change my life as it could have ended. I am 44 years old and have four boys and been married 16 years. I want to see my children's children and grow old with my wife. That moment the doctor told me those statistics absolutely woke me up. Since then, I have changed my eating habits to 2,000 to 2,500 calories a day, cut out all fast food, and walk three to four times a week, up to two miles each time.
My energy levels are much better now and I am not as tired as I use to be. I have re-prioritized items in my life and am working daily on balancing more of being a husband and father. Honestly, it is very, very hard but part of my motivation to push through is that I know in the long run my family deserves to have me around.
This process is one of the hardest things I have done in my life. I have learned to celebrate the little things — like now being able to tuck in my shirt and have my belt be seen, instead of just keeping my shirt out. I've discovered that I really like other foods that are good for me. I have disciplined myself to say no to the free food items, plan my foods to take to sporting events, and research what is best for me and my body.
If I can do this and change, anyone can. I was set in my ways and it took a life-altering event to change it.
Don't wait for that to happen. We can make the change, but we must
want to do it. Don't wait for an emergency event in your life to make the change. We are all worth it and life is more beautiful when we celebrate these successes with each other.
On February 26, East Texas Baptist's Adam Ledyard received his 2021 ASC Championship ring for softball from Senior Woman Administrator Janae Shirley - almost five months after being in ICU.
Talk about these stories on the
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