Wednesday, March 29, 2023 /
/ Women’s Month — 7
It was six o’clock in the morning.
The sun hadn’t even begun to rise and
Ann Arbor was still bundled up under
the covers. Most people hadn’t stepped
out of bed, let alone started their day.
But Abigail O’Connor isn’t most
people.
At 6 a.m., football practice was
well underway, and she was doing what-
ever it took to motivate her players.
Even if that meant taking strength and
conditioning coach Ben Herbert’s gru-
eling fitness test.
So at the crack of dawn, while most
people’s movements remained only
in their ongoing dreams, O’Connor
settled in next to an offensive lineman
coming off of a broken ankle and took
that test. It’s a test designed for football
players who put in hours in the gym and
on the field day in and day out. It’s a test
designed to push you to your limits. It’s
a test designed to agonize you.
But for O’Connor, a nutritionist
who doesn’t spend most of her day in
the weight room like her players, that
didn’t scare her. She remained by her
player’s side and completed the strenu-
ous physical challenge. For O’Connor,
her job title as director of performance
nutrition means a lot more than simply
tailoring diets for her players.
“Because you’re always around
them, you kind of see that entire expe-
rience,” O’Connor told The Michigan
Daily. “And, alright you broke your an-
kle. From a nutrition’s standpoint what
can we do to make this recovery process
a little bit better? And then you kind of
get wrangled into doing things. Like,
yeah I’ll run the conditioning test with
you at six in the morning.”
Growing up, O’Connor never
imagined this line of work for herself.
She didn’t go to college interested in
spending her days guiding some of the
highest caliber college athletes. In fact,
she didn’t even grasp the fact that she
could spend her days doing that.
“My undergrad degree was in
biology, and I was taking a couple of
exercise physiology courses during my
undergrad, and one of them was a sport
nutrition independent study,” O’Con-
nor said. “It was the first semester of my
senior year in college, I was like, ‘Oh,
people get paid to talk about (nutrition)
all the time.’ So I found out you can have
this as a career pretty late in college and
applied to graduate school to get my
masters in nutrition.
“… I quite literally fell into it.”
Three years later, after spending
time at Houston as a performance nu-
trition intern and at Minnesota as the
director of sports nutrition, she took the
next step in her career. And that brought
her to Michigan.
As a woman, a leadership job at
one of the most prestigious college
football programs in the country could
be considered daunting. The sport in-
dustry generally is a male-dominated
field, and football is one of the most
male-dominated sports. But O’Connor
wasn’t intimidated, instead taking the
opportunity for herself and using that to
help her players.
“I think it’s really important for
our athletes to be around women and
to be around professional women who
are enthusiastic about their sport, en-
thusiastic about their development,”
O’Connor said. “… I think it just adds
to the entire experience of our athletes
to be around women in sport, and wom-
en who are enthusiastic about growing
support.”
O’Connor’s enthusiasm and moti-
vation shines in her work. Throughout
her time with the Wolverines, O’Con-
nor has thrived in her role of developing
the team’s nutrition. The time players
put in on the field, in the weight room
and watching film is what first comes to
mind for many when thinking about pre-
paring and working before a game. But
nutrition is equally important. Getting
more than 100 Division-I football play-
ers to change their diets and commit to
healthy habits is no easy task, though.
Food is fuel, and for athletes who
spend thousands of hours working on
their body, why should they listen to
some stranger about changing the way
they eat?
Because it’s not a stranger telling
them. O’Connor realized that without
meaningful relationships with her play-
ers they wouldn’t have any reason to lis-
ten to her. So she found the best way to
get the team on board:
Trust.
“There’s a lot of trust that’s built
first,” O’Connor said. “And that’s
what’s kind of built that buy-in. Come
first with the trust and second with the
information.”
That buy-in is everything. If
O’Connor is providing excellent infor-
mation, but there’s no trust, the players
have no reason to listen. And when that
happens, everyone loses. O’Connor
can’t do her job to the best of her ability
and the players’ bodies can’t perform
their best. But O’Connor made sure that
wouldn’t happen.
How?
Remaining clear in her motivation.
She just wants the players to be as good
as she knows they can be.
“I get no benefit from you eating
the broccoli, you’re the one getting all
this benefit,” O’Connor said. “And I’m
pushing for you to be the one who’s im-
proving.”
If Michigan’s players don’t under-
stand why O’Connor is pushing them so
hard, it’s tough to reap all of the rewards
of her guidance. Luckily, the Wolver-
ines have bought in, not only under-
standing her motivation and trust, but
using it to improve themselves.
Not only have the players grown
to trust O’Connor, but O’Connor has
grown to trust them too.
“She took care of me my first three
years,” defensive lineman Mazi Smith
told The Daily. “Last year, she start-
ed being able to let me go because she
knew I was going to do the things that
we worked on. It was rough to start it,
but once we got to go on everything, ev-
erything went right along.”
Smith is a player who bought in
right away. He knew the player he was
capable of being and was prepared to do
anything and everything to achieve that.
And that meant treating his body right,
not only in the gym, but also at the table.
“I think if you had told Rec-Specs
wearing Mazi, ‘Hey, you’re going to be
the number one freak in the country
your senior year,’ he would not be sur-
prised whatsoever,” O’Connor said.
“But he was very well aware of all the
work he was going to have to put in,
and that kid was on my hip for his entire
freshman year.”
That dedication paid off for Smith.
Since that freshman year of turning to
O’Connor for all guidance related to
what he put into his body, he has taken
immense strides. Not only did he build
30 pounds of muscle and work his way
to becoming a widely-regarded second
round pick in the upcoming NFL Draft,
but he also developed habits that ex-
tend beyond those accomplishments.
Through that process, Smith grew a
healthy relationship with food that will
help him continue to prosper.
And that’s thanks to O’Connor
and her dedication.
Arriving at Schembechler Hall at 6
a.m. everyday shows just how strong that
dedication is. She doesn’t put in hours
for conditioning, fine tune her agility or
run drawn up plays. But she still has an
impact. Because at six in the morning,
when Ann Arbor is still sleeping, she’s
there.
She has made it clear that she’s
here to do whatever it takes to help the
team.
“I will go through the lift, like
I’ve run our conditioning tests so that
when I sit and talk to them about it I
have first-person experience,” O’Con-
nor said. “Yes, (the test) is a bummer, it
does suck. I’m there at practices, I pop
into meetings to get a more clear under-
standing of what they’re doing and what
their goals are.”
Because each player’s individual
goal is unique. For Smith, it was fueling
his body correctly, and adopting healthy
habits. For defensive end Mike Morris,
O’Connor composed ways to add lean
mass to specific areas to improve his
craft. For wide receiver Ronnie Bell,
O’Connor helped him embrace his in-
jury and use the adversity to tweak the
way he runs.
But beyond players’ individual
goals lie one shared mission — to win.
Although O’Connor isn’t on the field
running drills or calling up plays, she
plays a huge role in that mission all from
her desk.
And sometimes at the start line of a
6 a.m. conditioning test.
Fueling championship football: Abigail
O’Connor making mark at Michigan
LINDSAY BUDIN
Daily Sports Writer
Courtesy of Michigan Athletics