Although training and competition experience may seem like the most important role in becoming an elite athlete, it is the elements beneath the surface that enable athletes to truly succeed.
In December 2023, the Ithaca College athletics department announced the hiring of Shira Evans ’06 as a sports nutrition consultant. Since starting the program, Evans has worked with nearly every varsity team on campus in cooking workshops and sports-specific nutrition programs.
Susan Bassett ’79, vice president and director of intercollegiate athletics, said sports nutrition is an area of performance she has considered expanding since returning to the athletics department. Similar to the Leadership Academy curriculum offered to student-athletes at the university, Bassett said Evans will be a ready resource.
“This is like Greg Shelley being a leadership consultant,” Bassett said. “Now Shira Evans is a nutrition and sports performance consultant. A few things aligned and I think this was an area where I thought we needed to improve, so we decided to try Shira and so far the feedback has been very positive.”
Evans’ hiring is a relatively rare occurrence in college sports. Evans is the first officially listed nutrition consultant of any Liberty League employee. What makes this stand out even more is that hiring a nutritionist isn’t universal, even in Episode 1. While 61 of the 65 Power Five schools in Division 1 have a sports dietitian, only 31 schools outside the Power Five have one.
Evans specializes in the areas of relative energy deficiency in sport (RED-S), eating disorders, and eating disorder care. He said that in addition to the workshops he conducts with teams, he is also a resource open to individual athletes.
“I will be able to support student-athletes with any nutritional concerns,” Evans said. “Let’s say an athlete is going through ACL reconstructive surgery, nutrition makes a big impact. Or maybe they are an athlete who is struggling with a lot of nutrient deficiencies or RED-S and needs support with that. They can meet with me confidentially one-on-one about any nutrition-related issues .”
Prior to Evans’ hiring, the athletic department hosted a nutrition webinar for athletes at the beginning of each semester. Bassett said that although most of the meetings were helpful, the materials were becoming outdated and Evans’ app would keep the programming more current.
Evans, a former college athlete himself who competed for the Bombers’ cross country and track and field teams, said being able to give back to the athletic community is what he loves most about his job.
“I’ve also gone through trials and tribulations in learning how to find what works best for me in terms of improving performance, and I think it’s a lot of fun to support athletes from different backgrounds and sports,” Evans said. “Being able to educate and empower them, whether it’s a performance-related goal, helping them improve their relationship with food or their body as an athlete. “Working with student-athletes is truly rewarding.”
Jennifer Potter ’92, head coach of the women’s track and field team, coached Evans throughout her time as an athlete. The two reunited in June 2023, when Potter and Erin Dinan, the head coach of the women’s cross country team, attended a women’s sports conference in Boston, Massachusetts.
There, Potter said he and Dinan began soliciting Evans’ opinion on how to interact with student-athletes at the university and specific issues they were noticing.
“We went to lunch with him and it was more like, ‘Hey, how could you do this for us?’ we said. And that’s how the conversation started,” Potter said. “At one point we were thinking maybe we could bring her in, maybe someone else, but the more we met Shira the more we thought, ‘Wow, it would be great if we could bring her into our department.’ It’s a huge asset.”
From there, Potter said the men’s and women’s cross country teams, track and field teams and swimming and diving teams came together in fundraising efforts for Evans to visit campus late in the fall semester. Upon his arrival, he met with these six teams, the athletic training staff, medical staff, head coaches and the strength and conditioning staff.
Potter said Evans’ programming is specific to both the sport and the event, which is extra important in a sport like track and field.
“I think that’s what makes it unique,” Potter said. “We did one session with our endurance athletes, and then we did a separate session with our strength athletes. “There are so many great topics it can cover.”
Starting in January, Evans began hosting sport-specific workshops with more varsity teams on campus. Freshman Ainsley Grant, a member of the university’s field hockey team, said her team joined Evans for a cooking workshop and nutrition presentation. He said the workshops helped his team become more comfortable talking about and working with food.
“We were given a few breakfast recipes to choose from, and we chose pancakes and smoothies,” Grant said. “Shira was there to guide us, but it was mostly student-led. “Our intention was for this to be a recipe that we could bring back into our lives and cook ourselves.”
The transition from high school to college athletics can be a huge jump in workload for many athletes. Grant said workshops with Evans as a freshman helped him find the fuel he needed for the amount of training he endured.
“I find myself in the dining room asking, ‘What will this food do for my body and what can I add to it to better nourish my body?'” Grant said. “I find myself thinking,” he said. “We were picking at food in the dining hall and thinking, ‘This has good proteins, this has good fats,’ so I think we’re all more mindful because of him.”
With disordered eating becoming increasingly common among female athletes, Grant said Evans’ professionalism on the issues helped her teammates feel more comfortable asking questions about how to create enough fuel for training and competition.
“I know this can be a difficult topic when it comes to female athletes,” Grant said. “There are a lot of body image issues and there is a standard for what a female student athlete should look like and [Evans] He was emphasizing that he could really eat whatever he wanted. He put an emphasis on pre-workout snacking and fueling, and my team really embraced that. We are all very grateful to him.”
Returning to his alma mater, Evans said he feels a personal connection to the university’s athletics program and looks forward to contributing to athletes like himself.
“When I was a student-athlete, I think these types of resources were very much needed for the general student-athlete population for a lot of reasons,” Evans said. “It’s very exciting to give back that capacity, to work with current student-athletes and provide them with that kind of resource. I think it’s something that’s needed at any school.”