The Wizards have hired a personal chef for John Wall.
We did so before the season began.We also employ a chef that serves all of our players healthy fare every day for breakfast here at the arena and for lunch when needed. This has been a service that has been in place for many, many years. We teach our players about nutrition; rest; naps; workouts; hydration, etc. etc. All teams do. We do a lot of it because we have so many young players.
Why is it so hard to send me an email or place a call and ask a question before someone writes something?
I agree with the negativity comment. I don’t understand how people (dcist) can take away anything from the article other than that he sounds like a level-headed, humble, incredibly likeable guy. Why else would they call him out for not walking to the Verizon Center? Seriously??
In regards to his food, it sounds like he’s a normal kid that likes snacks and still adjusting to being in the NBA. I’m not worried. He’s smart and his mom sounds like a great presence in his life.
Thank you for addressing this, Mr. Leonsis.
I guess the concern now is that some of the players are not paying attention, which is a much better problem to have than having no nutritional program at all.
Maybe having embarrassing WaPo and etc. articles written about lousy nutritional habits isn’t such a bad thing?
I think people are just in the habit of being negative. There is negativity on the news constantly and negativity in the TV shows people watch. If you watch too much of that stuff, people begin to incorporat that into the way they think/talk/live. It has to be a choice to be positive and happy. . .something I am trying hard to teach my son!! Your positive influence does and will make a huge difference to the young men playing on your teams. Keep it up. Let’s all try to make a difference!
I’d like to hear more about this. Does every player on the team have a personal chef? Do they cook 3 meals in the morning and leave them in the player’s fridge? Do they show up once/week with food? Also, there is a big difference between providing players with boring information and working with them to make sure they truly understand and appreciate the benefits. As a matter of fact, I posted several questions about Andrey Blatche’s workout routine/diet/etc on this blog, and they were ignored (I think, perhaps they were answered and I didn’t see it).
I don’t think you can blame this entirely on the reporters. You have a tremendous platform for providing information on this type of thing, and yet you rarely do it. The Wizards forums often talk about this type of thing and the general assumption is that the players are not particularly well cared for.
I am friends with a recent #1 pick in another sport, and he doesn’t get anything close to this type of attention. I’ve been shocked to watch such a high dollar investment be neglected. It’s good to hear the Wizards are doing better.
So where was John Wall’s chef when the WaPo was shooting his snack filled fridge?
And Wall was quoted as saying he has put on some extra weight (that apparently is not muscle).
And how can you get around the obvious fact that Andray Blatche put on a spare tire when he was recovering from his foot injury?
Your young team was also gasping for air when it ran out to an early lead in a recent game.
I know you want to run a first-class operation, so I am confident that your ultimate response will be a bit more proactive than “…workouts, hydration, etc. etc.” Winning in the NBA means not just acquiring talent but paying absolute attention to every detail about the health and well-being of that talent. The Wizards right now lack discipline, endurance and concentration, and proper nutrition, mental and phsyical fitness are essential to those things.
As I’m sure you can attest there is a laziness to reporting these days. It is prevalent in the Washington Post, Washingtonian, and countless other publications. The days of proper journalism has died.