Fueling victory in the SEC

Lipscomb’s sports dietitian alumni are fueling top-shelf athletic performance throughout the Southeastern Conference (SEC) and the nation.

Janel Shoun-Smith | 615-966-7078  |  11/24/2025

Every morning in America, college athletes are pushing their bodies through early-morning conditioning sessions, weight room workouts and long hours of practice.

But today, more student-athletes than ever before are grabbing a balanced breakfast, packing energy-boosting snacks for a full day on campus or refueling after practice with post-recovery shakes—smarter nutrition habits shaped in part by the growing presence of sports dietitians on college campuses.

In 2016 as a response to the growing demand, Lipscomb’s Dietetic Internship Program (DIP) created a pathway to train future sports dietitians, becoming the first private university in Tennessee and one of the earliest mid-major programs in the nation to hire a dedicated full-time sports dietitian.
 

This role, then and now, supports Lipscomb’s athletic teams and  serves as a preceptor for DIP students, who complete a two-month rotation at a major sports organization, including Lipscomb University Athletics, the Nashville Soccer Club professional team and Vanderbilt University football.

Through these efforts, Lipscomb has become a key point of entry into the field, steadily expanding its program over the past decade.

Since the American Sports and Performance Dietitian Association (ASPDA) was established in 2010, the number of universities across the nation employing full-time sports dietitians has grown from 21 to more than 100, with many of those universities employing multiple dietitians, according to the association.

In 2011, Lipscomb graduated its first dietitian to go into sports nutrition, Rachel Stratton Manor (DIP ’11), who went on to practice at the University of Oregon and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. At that time, there were 40 people across the U.S. working full-time in sports nutrition, according to ASPDA. 

After adding Ann Toy (Ed.D. ’21) as the full-time sports dietitian, assistant professor and dietetic internship coordinator, Lipscomb Athletics debuted its “fueling station,” funded by donors through the 2019 Giving Day campaign. The designated kitchen space and snack depot for all student-athletes is conveniently located in Allen Arena and provides a consistent space to educate and influence the Bison athletes.

“What started as a bold move nearly a decade ago has grown into one of the most well-recognized and sought-after programs in the country in our world of sports nutrition,” said Toy. 

“The other really cool part about all of this is that everyone wins: the athletic department benefits from having a really high quality sports nutrition program to support its athletes, the students get an awesome hands-on learning experience and the DIP continues to attract and send out exceptional practitioners into the field. They are working in collegiate sports, professional sports and even the highest-ranking military operations units.”

“Not to mention that our student-athletes have seen dramatic improvement in performance and all-around health, reduced injuries and quicker recoveries since we established the program.”

As coaches have come to appreciate the positive influence of sports dietitians on athletes performance, stamina and resistance to injury, more and more positions for sports dietitians have been created, and Lipscomb graduates have been quick to fill those roles.

Today there are around 70 people working in the SEC’s 16 universities alone, and at least five of those are Lipscomb graduates. Alumni of the DIP sports nutrition concentration have landed jobs or fellowships at the universities of Michigan, Kentucky, Mississippi and Tennessee; at Notre Dame, Vanderbilt, Clemson, Auburn and Purdue universities; and at North Carolina State University, Virginia Tech, Texas A&M University and Washington State University, among others.

At the following links, you can get a glimpse of how Lipscomb Bisons are showing athletes across the powerhouse SEC how to eat their way to victory, including athletes on Vanderbilt’s football team, which is having a historic season in 2025:

• Cameron Nill builds muscles as well as relationships at Vanderbilt.

• Xaymara Gonzalez-Adams keeps nutrition center court at UK basketball.

• Lee Stowers takes Auburn’s Olympic sports from the plate to the podium.

• At Texas A&M, Margo Grover Newman teaches how to eat like an athlete, to perform like an athlete.

Nill builds muscles as well as relationships at Vanderbilt

Jacksonville native Cameron Nill (DIP/MS ’25) finished her degree in May but has already been working with Vanderbilt University’s football team as assistant football dietitian for several years.

The former student-athlete, earned her chops as a volunteer with the University of Florida’s nutrition team, traveling with the football team during her undergraduate studies there. During that time, she made contacts with Vanderbilt’s nutrition team and knew that at Lipscomb, she could do an internship at the Nashville-based Vanderbilt.

Her plan came to fruition as she snagged one of Lipscomb’s six sports nutrition internship spots in 2023 and did all of her sports training at Vanderbilt, as well as completing clinical and community rotations among other experiences.

The strength of Lipscomb’s sports dietetics program was that it was small, said Nill. It allowed her to build more one-on-one connections and to customize her training through the wealth of experiential placement locations in health care-focused Nashville. 

That small atmosphere prepared her for Vanderbilt, which she said also has a small “family atmosphere,” meaning she can spend a lot of time with the players and build strong personal relationships with them.

This season Nill works with the defensive players for Vanderbilt football and the women’s lacrosse team. 

“A big part of my job is one-on-one counseling to help athletes meet weight goals and body composition (a measurement of muscle, fat mass and bone density) goals,” said Nill. She teaches students how to fuel properly before practices and games, so they don’t lose stamina or agility. She often develops personal nutrition plans for specific student-athletes.

In addition to making educational presentations to the teams and leading grocery store tours for new students, she also orders all the snacks for Vanderbilt’s fueling station and makes catering orders for the students when they need a meal from someplace other than the cafeteria.

Vanderbilt’s sports nutrition program is small compared to other SEC schools, said Nill, but it has certainly been a factor in helping the football team’s rise through the ranks in the past two years. The team had a 2-10 win-loss record in 2023, but rose to be ranked in the top 25 in 2024 with a 7-6 overall record and has been ranked as high as No. 9 in the Associated Press Top 25 poll in 2025.

The football nutrition staff of two dietitians are crucial before, during and after practices, said Nill. They weigh the football players and conduct hydration testing every morning before practices. Then they are on-site at practice to provide extra water and sports drinks, with a blend of carbohydrates and electrolytes, in case players get cramps or begin to feel ill. Some players have health conditions such as Type 1 Diabetes, that require monitoring or certain quick-grab snacks like Skittles and Gatorade to raise blood sugar, said Nill.

Post-practice the nutrition staff is ready with recovery protein shakes and to make sure Vanderbilt’s fueling station is packed with all the snacks the athletes may need.

“I’m pretty hands-on with the linebackers,” Nill said. “The guys and I have developed a good relationship. They trust me, so they are willing to ask me questions.”

Some of the most positive feedback she gets from student-athletes regards information on nutritional supplements, a booming industry that is not regulated. So it can be confusing and difficult for students to choose the most effective and safe supplement for their personal performance needs.

“I had so many guys coming up after my presentation, asking questions and asking for URL links and clarifications. Not only were they listening but they wanted to act on the information,” said Nill.

“It’s definitely very time consuming,” said Nill, “but it is rewarding to see your work payoff as the team succeeds.

Gonzalez-Adams keeps nutrition center court at UK basketball 

If you thought it was tough getting your own kids to eat their peas and carrots, imagine what it’s like trying to get a whole ball team to eat healthy.
That’s what Xaymara Gonzalez-Adams (DIP ’18/MS ’19), director of Olympic performance nutrition at the University of Kentucky, strives to achieve on a daily basis. She oversees 16 teams, including the top sport on campus: men’s basketball.

“I’m feeding them multiple times per week and rotating the food enough so they don’t develop food fatigue,” said Gonzalez-Adams, as the basketball team starts their season in September and continues all the way to March, the longest athletic season at the university.

“We do two-to-three proteins, a couple of carbs, a cooked vegetable, a fruit and salad bar, all buffet-style. Those are the building blocks and then I work with the chef to rotate flavors,” she said. “On the road, I include restaurants they like such as Chick-Fil-A, and after a game, when we are off a day, or maybe after a tough practice, I can fit in a fun meal that will help boost morale. Plus, I have to keep picky eaters and food allergies in mind.”

It's a lot. And that’s just half her job. She also does one-on-one nutrition counseling for student-athletes on her teams and hops around from practice-to-practice to check on athletes’ performance, make sure everyone is hydrated enough or to hand out recovery protein shakes.

She also travels with the basketball team, working with caterers, arena staff and restaurants in the game cities to provide appropriate meals for game days, making sure the team follows their “fueling schedule,” even in the face of last minute tournament schedule changes and to generally be on-hand for athletes. 

National-level competition can bring national-level stress, but Gonzalez-Adams knew the drill for a hectic life within an athletic department. She played volleyball in high school in Puerto Rico, earned her bachelor’s degree in culinary nutrition at Johnson & Wales University in Rhode Island and worked for three years as a clinical dietitian at Ascension St. Thomas in Nashville before scoring a fellowship in sports nutrition at Auburn University. 

And that is all in addition to her experience earning her dietitian credential through Lipscomb’s DIP and her master’s in exercise and nutrition, where she worked as Toy’s graduate assistant. Lipscomb’s concentration was still relatively new in 2018-19, so in addition to learning time management, Gonzalez-Adams also learned how much building relationships and learning to persuasively explain the benefits of the program matters to a newly established nutrition department.

That helped a lot at Kentucky as her position, originally covering basketball and volleyball as the second dietitian on staff, was only established four years ago, and two additional dietitians under Gonzalez-Adams’ supervision were added for the Olympic sports just last year.

“The nutrition program has proven to be a valuable thing for the athletics program,” said Gonzalez-Adams. “We are still working to grow, but our athletics director has seen the benefits. With more dietitians, we can now give more focus to all the teams, so now the students are seeing the benefits as well.”

“The nutrition program has proven to be a valuable thing for the athletics program,” said Gonzalez-Adams. “We are still working to grow, but our athletics director has seen the benefits. With more dietitians, we can now give more focus to all the teams, so now the students are seeing the benefits as well.”

Each team’s “fueling schedule” differs based on the performance factors in each sport, said Gonzalez-Adams. While someone on the basketball team needing to gain weight may eat a lot of carbohydrates and protein, someone on the rifle team may need to limit carbs and caffeine in order to keep their heart rate down during an hour of shooting.

As young adults, many of the student-athletes coming to Kentucky are living away from home for the first time and may have never learned about healthy food or how to cook for themselves. The university has a designated “fuel zone” staffed by a dietitian for the students to learn cooking techniques, and dietitians make regular presentations to the teams on topics like nutrient timing, importance of recovery and  supplement safety. 

Gonzalez-Adams says both her personal experience as a young athlete and her Lipscomb master’s in exercise and nutrition science help her relate to students and coaches, as she can understand the body science behind injuries, conduct data analysis of students’ performance and empathize with the stress of the student-athlete life.

“Part of the job is meeting them where they are at,” said Gonzalez-Adams. “I have the perfect plate in my mind, and they have what they want to eat in their mind. I try to figure out  where we can meet in the middle. I am never going to get them to stop eating Raising Canes, but can I get them to eat that after a game, not before. If they go into the pros, we want them to know the basics of nutrition, so they are not floundering around.”

Stowers takes Auburn’s Olympic sports from the plate to the podium 

Lee Stowers’ (DIP ’17, MS ’18) position at Auburn University as director of Olympic sports nutrition is a full circle moment for her and her family as both her mother, Gaye, attended and her father played football at Auburn. Her father, Tim Stowers, went on to become a collegiate football coach in Rhode Island for years.
 
Stowers was an athlete herself during her undergraduate years, but in the Olympic sports, throwing hammer on the track and field team at the University of Alabama. While there, she logged two years as a nutrition intern, earning a second bachelor’s degree before pursuing her dietetic internship and master’s at Lipscomb. 
 
“I have a very unique skill set, because I grew up in football,” Stowers said. “Football can be very intimidating to people. It has a lot of aspects you have to learn on the job. It’s intense, especially in the summer.”

Upon graduation in 2018, Stowers went to the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB) to join the four-person nutrition staff to work with its football team, a Division 1 Conference USA team that was actually cut and then resurrected in 2017 and went on to win three conference division titles consecutively in 2018-2020.

“Our coach was very invested in nutrition, and that was a big part of how we were able to grow our program,” she said.

While at UAB, Stowers earned her Ph.D. exploring the effects of food insecurity, hydration status and training conditions on body composition. 

That degree is coming into play now as Auburn revamped its nutrition program in 2024 to become more clinically focused and to expand coverage of the Olympic sports, Stowers said. Now the university has two dietitians and an intern working with the football team, and Stowers oversees four full-time dietitians on the Olympic side working with 16 sports. 

Stowers herself focuses on the track and field, baseball and golf teams.

In 2024 the men’s golf team won the NCAA national championship. Auburn’s men’s basketball team was also successful, winning the SEC regular season in 2025 and the SEC tournament championships in 2024.

As a program manager now, Stowers works to ensure her staff is providing equitable time and resources to all the teams and meeting the specific needs of each team. She mentors staff and ensures that the best systems are in place to achieve their mission now and their vision for the future,

In Auburn’s clinically-based program, dietitians are given the time to focus on menu planning, individual nutrition counseling, body composition testing, blood tests, nutrition screenings, diet evaluations, supplementation and helping injured athletes fuel to return to play, she said.

This structure allows dietitians to see student-athletes face-to-face much more, and to work with the strength coaches, doctors and athletics trainers to figure out a plan for each student-athlete all together, she said.

In that environment, Stowers hopes to incorporate more research into her role at Auburn. For example, as she was working at UAB during the Covid pandemic, Stowers researched how the food insecurity at that time impacted football players’ body composition and performance for her dissertation. 

“In sports and research, you are collecting this data all the time,” so why not utilize it to impact the entire field, said Stowers,

Earning her DIP at Lipscomb during the first year of the sports nutrition concentration proved valuable as she was hired at Auburn with the charge to build a lot of the structure on the Olympic side. At Lipscomb, she has experienced ways to nurture and build an athletics nutrition program from the ground up.

“Having all the different experiences at different levels really helps me build the program here,” she said. “It helps me to connect with all the different athletes. At Lipscomb, I even helped with a research study, which showed that practice and research is feasible and how to utilize your resources on campus.”

Newman teaches how to eat like an athlete, to perform like an athlete

Margo Grover Newman (DIP ’18, MS ’19), now director of Olympic sports nutrition at Texas A&M University, was not only a student-athlete herself, in rowing at the University of Wisconsin Madison, but she also married a Lipscomb athlete, Wayne Newman (BS ’17, MM ’19), a hurdler on the track and field team from 2013-2018. 

She studied dietetics and worked as a UW athletics performance nutrition student worker before continuing her dietetics internship and master’s work at Lipscomb. That undergraduate experience allowed her to “see both sides of sports nutrition, as an athlete and as a student worker,” which has proven valuable in her job today. 

Desiring a well-rounded experience, she chose the health promotion and wellness concentration for her dietetic studies at Lipscomb and began working in clinical nutrition in Nashville upon graduation.

That decision served her well as her clinical experience and an additional fellowship in sports nutrition at Texas Christian University earned her the position at Texas A&M, which has a medically focused program, she said. 

As performance nutrition increasingly intertwines with sports medicine, the SEC recently began using a new electronic medical record for documentation of care, said Newman. Her clinical experience has helped her guide her three-person staff to learn the EMR process and practice the best ways to collaborate with the medical staff, she said.

“It’s becoming more and more clinical,” said Newman, noting that they do body composition scans  three to four times a year and weekly hydration testing on all the athletes. Her nutrition team also has a goal to do a sit-down consultation with every new student-athlete at the university, she said.
That’s a tall order with 13 teams on A&M’s Olympic sports slate. Newman’s teams include softball, track and field and cross country.

Thanks to her education at Lipscomb, Newman feels equipped to take on this order. “The multiple types of nutrition exposure I got at Lipscomb has been really helpful to draw on,” said Newman. “We saw so many types of dietitians in different areas. It helped me build confidence in working and collaborating with many types of professionals. I use what I learned day to day as I navigate conversations with coaches and caring for athletes from a performance and clinical perspective.” 
 
Since taking on her role at Texas A&M, the university’s women’s tennis team won the NCAA National Tournament for the first time in 2024, and the men’s track and field team, which has a long storied history of success, won the 2025 NCAA DI Outdoor National Championship.
 

While consultations with athletes are a large  part of Margo’s role, the performance nutrition department at A&M also serves the athletes with educational “team talk” presentations on topics relevant for an entire team. “We’re educating them on the best timing of eating and explaining what to eat at meals before practices and supplementation, and even provide cooking classes,” she said.
 
“Supplements are a very popular topic as the supplement industry is booming right now,” said Newman. “It’s definitely the wild west out there when it comes to supplements. We really preach to the students that they need to be taking things that are effective and certified as safe for sport (or devoid of banned substances). We help them navigate those choices.”
 
The dietetics staff also oversees stocking team fueling stations and coordinates the meals provided at the athletic dining facility, Newman said.
Newman’s prior experience as a collegiate collegiate student-athletes herself allows her to connect with her athletes as their performance dietitian. She understands“the pressures they feel and the constraints on their schedule,” she said. “It helps when you can say, ‘I’ve been there. I have had days like that.’ Students can see that it is something you have done before, and you can understand what they are going through.”