By Jerry Hill
Baylor Bear Foundation
Kaz Kazadi, who had a vision for this place seven or eight years ago, says the BANC is much more than just another campus dining hall.
At Friday night's dedication for the Beauchamp Athletics Nutrition Center, the Associate AD for Athletic Performance said the facility is a team-bonding experience and can build character and great habits for now and the future.
"Think about when you used to sit down and have dinner with your grandma," Kazadi said. "How many of these kids don't get that experience to sit down and have dinner with their loved ones? Now, they're sitting there with their team each and every day laughing over the table, as opposed to rushing off to different dining halls and going each and every way. It doesn't become community, it doesn't become the bonding situation that we have here now."
Approved by the Board of Regents in December 2013 and opened Aug. 24 on the first day of the fall semester, the BANC was formally dedicated with a Friday ceremony that included Baylor President and Chancellor Ken Starr, Director of Athletics Ian McCaw, the Beauchamp family and head coaches Scott Drew, Kim Mulkey, Steve Rodriguez, Felecia Mulkey, Jay Goble, Mike McGraw and Joey Scrivano.
"This is a very special day in the life of Baylor Athletics to dedicate the Beauchamp Athletics Nutrition Center," McCaw said. "This is the culmination of a long-term dream. This was Coach Kaz's vision going back seven or eight years ago. To finally realize this, and not only have a nutrition center but the best nutrition center in the country for athletes, we're very much blessed."
Judge Starr thanked Bob and Laura Beauchamp for "answering the call." They made the lead gift for the facility, which also includes a fueling station and upstairs players' lounge equipped with 80-inch HD televisions, leather couches and even a barber's chair.
After referencing the times in the Bible where Moses, Samuel and Isaiah all said, "Here am I, Lord," Starr thanked the Beauchamps "for saying here am I when the call came."
During the 2014 Final Four, Connecticut guard Shabazz Napier made a shocking statement that "there's hungry nights where I'm not able to eat." When Judge Starr asked Drew if that was even possible, the Baylor men's basketball coach said, "It is true, and it happens on the Baylor campus."
The two reasons, Starr said, were "NCAA rules and regulations that prevented universities that wanted to do right by the student-athletes from doing that . . . and so many of our athletes coming from modest means or at-risk neighborhoods where maybe they don't have a family to support them."
"This truly was an answer to a cry," Starr said. "There was a need for this wonderful facility. Here at Baylor, we say it's all about the students. Well, surely it should also be it's all about the student-athletes and how they give of themselves so remarkably and tirelessly in the most successful athletic program in the United States of America. What can we do to take care of them?"
McCaw called the new facility a "game-changer for Baylor Athletics."
"A stadium on the water, a dining hall on the water, that puts a lot of pressure on other programs," Kazadi said.
Working with Director of Nutrition Jana Heitmeyer, the athletes can customize their diets, Kazadi said.
Using 5-11, 170-pound redshirt freshman receiver Chris Platt as an example, Kazadi said "green-light kids" like Platt can come in and eat anything they want as often as they want and never gain any weight.
On the "complete opposite end of the spectrum" is 6-7, 400-pound tight end LaQuan McGowan, who is encouraged to "pick the darkest leaves . . . and the animals with the least amount of legs."
"So, what am I saying? Eat a lot of fish, eat a lot of dark, green leaves, and you'll be all right," Kazadi said. "The bigger guys get, we really are trying to encourage them to live a whole life. It's not just about athletics. When they come through the door, yes, you want to put weight on them; yes, you want to put muscle mass on them. But it's got to be more important than that. because they're going to leave here. They have to leave with good habits.
"If we're going to put 30 or 40 pounds of muscle on a kid, what is he going to do when he leaves here? We've got to teach them those things."
Bob and Laura Beauchamp, both University of Texas graduates, became involved with Baylor through their experience as parents. Three of their four sons have been or currently are Baylor students. Bob serves on the Board of Regents and Hankamer School of Business Advisory Board, and the Beauchamps both served on the Steering Committee for Baylor's $100 million President's Scholarship Initiative.
When he brought the proposal for the family's latest investment to his wife, Bob said "it took about five seconds for us to think that this would be a great idea."
While some organizations don't know who they are or what they want to do, Bob Beauchamp said, "the great thing about Baylor is we know we are, we know who we're not and we know what we've got to do."
"This place has such an incredible gift of being that unique -- as a friend of mine who likes to make fun of Baylor calls it -- Jerusalem on the Brazos," Beauchamp said. "It's such a powerful Christian institution and something we're so proud to be able to play a small part in contributing."
In a prayer of dedication, Baylor Athletics Chaplain Wes Yeary said, "We ask that the things that take place here would be life-transforming, as not only young men and women eat to nourish their bodies and grow the gifts and abilities that you've blessed them with, but that lives be changed through it as well."
