Refueling stations aren’t just for automobiles anymore.
Thanks to the foresight of the DSU Heritage Foundation, Dickinson State University (DSU), Coca-Cola Bottling Company of Dickinson, the North Dakota Beef Commission, and Dunn Burgers, Blue Hawk athletes now have a convenient refueling station just feet from where they work out.
The Powered by Beef Program
“Powered by Beef is a sports nutrition program that the Beef Commission and Checkoff in North Dakota are using to influence athletes to include beef in their diets,” said ND Beef Commission Executive Director Nicole Wardner. “We’re always looking to add universities in North Dakota, and not just because we have North Dakota students in them. We have a lot of student-athletes from outside our state, and if we give them a positive message, wherever they land they can continue utilizing beef in their diets.”
Dickinson State is the latest North Dakota higher education institution to join the Powered by Beef initiative, alongside Bismarck State, the University of Mary, the University of Jamestown, the University of North Dakota, and North Dakota State University.
Collaboration and Development
DSU Heritage Foundation Development Officer Kyle Smith played a crucial role in bringing everyone together to benefit all athletes at Dickinson State.
“It was one of those projects where once the vision got solidified, the shareholders were easy to bring on board,” Smith said. “Our support base is fantastic in terms of what is the next thing they can do to help student-athletes?”
It didn’t take much persuasion to get Wardner, Coca-Cola, and former Killdeer High School player, University of Wyoming Cowboy, and UND player Ben Murphy on board. When Murphy and his Dunn Burgers partner Weston Dvorak realized they needed help processing their beef into beef sticks, they called on Spencer Wurt and 6-in-1 Meats in New Salem.
“We had been doing something similar with different schools (Watford City and UND),” Murphy said. “Weston Dvorak was president of the North Dakota Beef Commission when they started Powered by Beef. They were looking for a local vendor and asked if we’d be interested. We knew we could provide what they wanted.”
What they wanted was a lot of beef, and the Beef Commission was there to help. Beef Checkoff funds from the ND Beef Commission purchased $10,000 worth of beef from Dunn Burgers, which in turn works with 6-in-1 Meats to process the beef into sticks. The beef is stored in a large, three-cooler bank created by Coca-Cola of Dickinson, located in the weight room of DSU’s Ben C. Frank Human Performance Center. Smith said on a given day, 180 athletes work out and hopefully refuel there.
Impact on Student-Athletes
Murphy said times have changed since his days as a college football player, and the changes are more noticeable at smaller schools like DSU.
“It’s gotten so much better than when I played. Back then, you’d get done and you’d get a protein shake,” Murphy pointed out. “Now they’re taking a holistic look at athletes and providing everything the athletes need. For example, UND players were experiencing fatigue late in their games. By putting more raw protein in the athletes’ diets, they had more energy to burn when they needed it most.”
At UND, Murphy worked primarily with the football team because that’s where his connections were. Each UND sport has its own unique program. He noted, “DSU is smaller and has a different setup in which all teams are kind of created equally and resources are shared by all. There are a lot of local athletes there. After they’re done with school, hopefully they get a job in the area and we can be the beef supplier.”
Value of the Partnership
From Wardner’s standpoint, programs like these are great uses of the Beef Checkoff. “I really value this partnership,” she said. “The program gives more value back to the beef producers of North Dakota than what we’re investing, and those are the kinds of partnerships we want.”
She continued, “We’re estimating this small grant will have eight times the impact that it would have on its own. By finding private donations and public donations and leveraging dollars, we created a huge impact that will change the way DSU fuels and refuels all its athletics.”
Dickinson State currently has eight men’s, eight women’s, and four coed sports.
By Scooter Pursley
Communication Specialist
DSU Heritage Foundation
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