By MARIO AGUIRRE | STAFF WRITER
Right after completing his first year at the University of Texas, former McAllen Memorial standout Tyler Marriott returned to the Valley and paid coach David Duty a visit.
At the time, Duty was an assistant at PSJA North, and Marriott recounted some of the amenities during his freshman season with the Longhorns, including what is known as the trainer’s table — free food for student-athletes, including cartons of chocolate milk, which the football players were encouraged to consume after a rigorous workout.
“Chocolate milk?” Duty remembers asking. “He said, ‘I don’t know everything about it, but they always have it for us. It’s something about the recovery.’”
The implementation of chocolate milk as a recovery drink has slowly filtered down from the professional and college ranks to the high school level, where programs like Hidalgo, led by Duty, are encouraging athletes to consume it to assist with muscle fatigue and muscle recovery.
“It’s a copycat league,” Duty said. “You see that the big boys are doing it, so you figure if UT does it, it must be good.”
Alex Molina, the child nutrition director at McAllen ISD, said she began fielding questions in 2011 from parents wondering why schools continued to serve chocolate milk, considering the amounts of sugar it contains. So she began working with the National Dairy Council and obtained data about the benefits of fat-free flavored dairy, and the caloric needs for students.
Molina, a former college athlete, weighed the sugar contents against the benefit of dairy with regard to calcium, bone growth, bone density and an active lifestyle. The extra calories from sugar were valuable for high school-aged students involved in athletics, especially considering the benefit of the protein they would gain from such milk. It was far more beneficial, she found, than standard Gatorade or Powerade, which lack in protein.
“I think that chocolate milk is great for all children because it gets them to consume low-fat dairy, which is high in calcium, high in calories, and so critical for growth and development,” Molina said. “For our athletes that are having prolonged high exertion, they do need that additional protein.”
Roma coach Max Habecker Jr. first came across the benefits in a published study more than three years ago. Concerned that some of his players might not get the proper nutrition following workouts, Habecker gathered information online and weighed the benefits of low-fat dairy.
Soon after, he made 16-ounce cartons of chocolate milk available to each player immediately after intense workouts.
“They bought into it real quick,” Habecker said. “It’s just teaching them that the recovery process is as important as the building process. It’s just as good as taking a protein shake, and obviously the kids don’t have to go out and spend $50 on pounds of protein. It’s accessible and it’s not expensive.”
Among the biggest concerns, coaches say, is finding funds to purchase equipment to store the milk. Fat-free milk, in particular, requires more temperature control because it spoils more easily.
But grants are available, for instance, through Dairy Max, which represents the National Dairy Council, for equipment to help store milk safely and promote milk consumption. Elementary physical education instructors with McAllen ISD, among others, have put such grants toward educational resources.
Dairy Max has partnered with Fuel Up to Play 60, an in-school nutrition and physical activity program launched by the National Dairy Council and NFL (in collaboration with the USDA), to encourage children of all ages to exercise 60 minutes each day.
Schools can apply for a grant of up to $4,000 per school year to support the implementation of the “Fuel Up to Play 60 Playbook,” which promotes a healthy lifestyle. Brownsville, Edcouch-Elsa, PSJA and Roma ISDs have successfully received such grants, most at the elementary school level. Several IDEA Public Schools in the Valley have also won. The next deadline is Nov. 2.
“Gatorade itself isn’t that expensive,” Sharyland Pioneer coach Jason Wheeler said. “You can make it in an instant. Just pour the powder in there and make a bunch of it. But you can’t do that with the recovery (Gatorade) drink. So there’s a lot of high schools that I think will go to the chocolate milk than before.
“We just have to find the budget for it.”