Ladyjacks Participate in Cooking Class
1/19/2015 12:00:00 AM | Women's Basketball
NACOGDOCHES, Texas – The Stephen F. Austin women’s basketball team spent some time away from the hardwood on Sunday evening to participate in a cooking and nutrition class led by sports dietitian Jenny Boynton and assistant athletic trainer/senior woman administrator Loree McCary. The fun and informative teambuilding activity was held in the human sciences building on campus.
The Ladyjacks first got instructions from Boynton and then broke up into five groups to prepare healthy meals together. Each group teamed up to make a breakfast dish before cooking a main course. Dinner items included beef tacos, three cheese chicken penne pasta bake, baked pork chops with potatoes and peas, shrimp and sausage jambalaya, and turkey meat sauce and spaghetti with broccoli and bread.
“We basically wanted to show the girls that cooking can be fun, easy, cost-effective and time efficient,” Boynton said. “It was hopefully an eye-opener for a lot of them in that fast food doesn’t need to be the answer. You can actually have fun cooking with your roommates and teammates and have a good meal out of it.”
Each meal was designed to be dorm and apartment friendly and take no longer than 30-35 minutes to prepare. More importantly for the budget of a collegiate athlete, all of the nutritious food items picked out by Boynton and McCary were inexpensive. In total, about 16 meals were made on Sunday evening for around $129, including milk to drink.
McCary, along with assistant coach Jodi Greve, had the idea in the fall for the team to take the class with Boynton and hopes more teams at SFA will follow suit.
“There is so much more to being a student-athlete than what takes place on the court or on the field,” said McCary. “Being able to take care of your body is crucial to being successful and I think the girls understand that and really learned a lot from the class. We hope to see more teams at SFA take advantage of what Jenny and the athletic training staff have to offer.”
The girls not only enhanced their cooking skills and increased their knowledge of nutrition on Sunday evening, but also enjoyed time away as a team with plenty of laughs and smiles to go around.
“They did awesome today,” Boynton said with a smile after Sunday’s class. “I was really impressed. They had good knife skills, nobody burned themselves, nothing came out that was completely ruined so they did a great job.”
-SFA-
