Meeting Rhule and learning his intentions, the importance with which he views player nutrition excited Coggin. He surpassed expectations Satterfield shared. She walked away thinking “this is a guy I’d like to work for.” So the opportunity at Nebraska merged all she was looking for.
“The standards he has, meeting him and what he’s trying to build here,” Coggin said. “I love the fact that we make our players sit down and have meals here together and being able to build that connection.”
Coggin develops those individualized plans by getting to know each football player better. That’s so she can learn food allergies, preferences and restrictions. However, she likes to broaden their nutritional horizons so they’ll make food a picky eater may not otherwise eat. She loves working with the different personalities and accommodating the various “teams within the team.”
Linemen, linebackers, receivers, for example, have different dietary needs. Their nutrition needs are different in winter workouts than spring practice. Both are much different than what they’ll require during the season. She collaborates multiple times a day with strength and conditioning coach Corey Campbell and his staff to ensure they’re on the same page. Coggin isn’t just giving nutrition to players, she’s teaching it. Some will go onto the NFL where these resources are self-serve. Others will graduate and go professional in a different walk of life. Either way, they’ll learn how to cook various dishes with a focus on nutrition. Coggin plans to start cooking lessons with players before the season, something a few remind her about.
Coggin tells everyone she has 120 little brothers to feed every day. She’s brought in two chefs so far, with plans to hire another, to help feed them all and staff. In order to accommodate them before spring practices, Coggin wakes up around 3:45 a.m. and stays in the stadium until around 7:30. They make shakes specifically for each player and Julian Franklin, one of the chefs, became a player favorite with specially made pancakes for breakfast. Sarah Ptak, the other football performance nutrition coordinator, helps with pre-lifting snacks so players maintain necessary nutrition to stay attentive, active and powerful. Those specialized meals are also made with religious observations in mind like Lent and Ramadan.
All those meals change as necessary. Some may never have thought about nutrition in the same way Coggin does, she wants to teach it. She knows a good amount of players were raised by their mothers and wants to be another consistent, strong female presence in their lives. Plus, she’s just as competitive and a former NCAA Championship-participant rower. She understands the mentality of players and coaches alike. So she’s catering her lessons to them in order to teach another aspect of elite performance.
My apologies to left handed people with that comparison. 
