Derry native tackles big job as Steelers' team dietitian

While the Pittsburgh Steelers are at training camp for the next three weeks, a nighttime snack before another hard day of practice might be a steak, chicken or salmon filet with potatoes, rice and vegetables.

It’s not everyone’s go-to bedtime bite, but it is part of the nutrition plan mapped out for the team by Kayla Martin, the team dietitian since 2024.

“I’ve come back full circle to the place where it all began,” said Martin, 42, a Unity resident and Derry native who has been a sports dietitian for 15 years.

Martin will be very busy over the next month overseeing the dietary needs of about 90 players who will be eating at the team’s cafeteria at Saint Vincent College in Unity.

It’s a task she and those involved in planning and preparing the meals for training camp have been working on for months.

“It’s a multi-faceted job,” Martin said. “We take care of the individual players’ (nutritional needs) as well as the team as a whole. We focus on the health of the person as part of sports medicine.”

She sets up a nutrition plan for each of the players. They differ depending upon the player’s needs, their food preferences, whether they’re injured or preparing to return to play, and even the position in which they play, Martin said.

The nutrition needs are different for a large-body offensive lineman and a slimmer wide receiver, for instance.

“We have the capabilities to track player nutrition down to the micronutrient,” said Martin, who is a certified specialist in sports dietetics.

The athletes’ approach to food can differ as well.

“Some athletes genetically need to pay more attention to their nutrition and hydration,” Martin said. “It all varies, but they need to ‘understand their demand’ and execute nutrition around it.”

One athlete may track and analyze everything they put into their body, while another may simply “add three eggs to breakfast, add one bottle of water and electrolyte pre-practice, cherry juice before bed … and moves on,” Martin said. “The athletes’ goal is my goal. The club’s goal is my goal. It’s a part of the ‘team’ that I’m passionate about.”

The athletes may not eat different foods than what other people eat, but it likely higher in calories, said Dr. Daniel Leigey, an orthopedic surgeon and director of sports medicine for Independence Health System. A large lineman might need to eat 5,000 or more calories a day, compared to about 2,000 calories for those who are not professional football players.

“It’s about getting the right things into their body,” Leigey said. “They need to eat the right protein.”

Track star

Sports was a family affair for Martin when she was growing up. She was a track and field star at Derry Area under the tutelage of her father, Rich Matrunick. Her mother, Mary, was the girls basketball coach.

“Athletics is in my DNA. I had a passion for sports,” Martin said.

She got an education in football while serving as the statistician for her father when he was Derry Area’s coach.

Her education in sports nutrition started when she was a child in the 1980s. Her father would bring home “special products” like salt tablets and vitamin C chewables from the high school football training camp, she said.

Martin was a three-sport athlete at Penn State from 2001-2005 — earning 11 letters — and was recognized as Penn State’s outstanding senior in nutrition. But when she was at Penn State, athletes provided their own nutrition for practice and competition, she said.

In paving a path in sports nutrition, she earned a bachelor’s degree in nutritional sciences and applied nutrition from Penn State, followed by a master’s degree in sports psychology from the University of Tennessee. The latter helps her better understand athletes.

“My career (path) did not exist when I was in college,” Martin said.

The field of sports nutrition has become much more sophisticated since then, Leigey said.

“The dietitians can formulate the nutrition based on the athlete’s body composition and create individual plans,” he said. “That diet can change when they are into the season, in the days leading up to the game.”

Job demands

Martin started her career as a sports nutritionist at one of the top schools for college football — Notre Dame — where she worked for four years, including two years as the sports nutrition director. She then moved on to the University of Louisville, where she was director of sports nutrition.

In 2017, she began serving as assistant director for sports performance nutrition services at Penn State, where she oversaw 31 athletic teams and about 800 athletes.

For anyone contemplating Martin’s career path, it’s not a 9-to-5 job, with weekends off.

She travels with the team for its preseason games and the eight or nine away games. She works most Sunday afternoons from September through December, and the occasional Sunday night, Thursday night, holiday and Saturday late in the season.

She’ll be traveling with the team to Dublin, Ireland, for a game Sept. 28, so she has been working for four months on the meals for the team — even when they’re in the air on the eight-hour plane ride.

“Athletics is not a clock-in, clock-out career. You’re always on. You have to be passionate about what you do and enjoy the task at hand,” said Martin, whose duties at home include raising her 6-year-old son with her husband, Vince. “Its just part of your life. It’s your blueprint, what you enjoy doing, and doing it for the right reasons.”