Which is pretty ridiculous when you think about it. Playing at that level, keeping your body in tune like that for 1,378 games (regular season and playoffs) and deciding at least 82 more at his age was a good idea.
Few players take their health as seriously as Allen (who is in Washington D.C. this week speaking to congress on behalf of the health of his six-year-old son with diabetes).
Allen can thank a Hartford area McDonald’s for teaching him that lesson early on (and he didn’t have to go the full Morgan Spurlock to learn his lesson).
“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 too 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.”
Allen’s pregame routine and ritual are the most precise and detailed in the league (Dirk Nowitizki comes close). Allen is nearly OCD about his routine — he doesn’t like it changed. He wants that structure in his life.
He said he has tried to preach that to other players over the years — the usual pattern for players entering the league is that they eat pretty badly for a few years, but as their bodies start to age a little they realize what Allen figured out 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.”
He’s going to get to deal with those professional issues one more year. Thanks to the care he has taken of his body. And with a little nudge from McDonald’s.
(Full article available on http://probasketballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/07/10/mcdonalds-taught-ray-allen-an-early-lesson-about-conditioning-that-helped-shape-an-18-year-carrer/)
