McDonald’s Taught Ray Allen To Eat Right, Helped Career
By Mike Dyce
Ray Allen has opted in with the Miami Heat after he won his second NBA Title. The 2013-14 season will be Allen’s 18th of his career. He has played 1,378 NBA games in his career and has kept his body in great shape to be able to play for so long effectively.
But Ray Allen’s secret might be how seriously he takes care of his health. It was a lesson he learned early on from a McDonald’s restaurant.
“There was a time in college where before practice I went to McDonald’s and I had a quarter pounder with cheese, I went to practice that day and I just remembered I felt so sluggish out there,” Allen told ProBasketballTalk. “And I was looking around thinking ‘Coach is just working us to hard’ because I just feel so tired. I ask the guys around me, ‘Do you guys feel tired? Because I just can’t move around like I want to” and everybody is like ‘no, I’m good.’
“And I was thinking about it all practice — wow I had a cheeseburger before I came to practice, I can’t do that anymore. From that day forward I started thinking about everything I put in my body that was preventing me from performing. I started realizing it is connected.
“So when I got to the NBA I had a pregame routine, a game day routine. How I worked out affected how I ate.”
Most players don’t embrace the routine until the later stages of their career. It’s when they begin fighting father time that they implement routines and watch what they eat as they look to extend their careers.
Ray Allen had a head start having learned that lesson in college.
“That’s the adjustment,” Allen said. “I think so many people fall out of favor when they get to the NBA because you don’t have a structure. It’s important for a lot of guys, when they go through college, you learn a structure, and you got to carry that structure over (to the NBA). But some guys they get to the NBA, or any professional sport at all, and they say ‘I don’t have a coach breathing down my neck all day I can do what I want eating wise, I can manage my own time and do what I want and stay up late.’ Some guys almost rebel.
“But you almost have to go in the other direction. You have to take this as an opportunity to say, ‘I’m in the NBA and I want to make a lot of money, if I want to be around for a long time, I have to make sure I prioritize this job… The money is really a non-issue; it’s really about being effective and successful at your job. The money will come along with it.”