It only requires a short conversation with Courtney Kawamoto (’20 MS CPD) to see that she is living her best life. Not long after she graduated with a master’s degree from the WSU College of Medicine’s Department of Nutrition and Exercise Physiology, she landed a job as the associate director of sports nutrition for the University of Virginia Athletics Department.
“I really enjoy my job,” Kawamoto said.
The Virginia Cavaliers are an athletic powerhouse in the Atlantic Coast Conference (ACC) and the athletics department puts a high priority on sports nutrition for its student-athletes. Kawamoto handles nutrition programming for six of the power conference’s teams.
“I do one-on-one nutrition counseling with the athletes, team education, and some food service which involves preparing meals and snacks around practices, travel, and games,” Kawamoto added. “I’ve also done cooking classes and grocery store tours. Each team is different, so we tailor the nutrition-related programming to each team’s needs.”
It’s a career that Kawamoto has been working toward since high school. She grew up in Portland, Oregon, and knew she wanted to be a dietitian early on, but she wasn’t sure which track she was most interested in. While studying for her undergraduate degree at Montana State University, an interest in kinesiology, the study of human movement, plus her own athletic involvement, paved her path into sports nutrition.
Kawamoto earned two undergraduate degrees from MSU, one in food and nutrition and one in exercise science, then set her sights on WSU’s Master of Science Coordinated Program in Dietetics, Nutrition and Exercise Physiology (MS CPD). But before she could even call herself a Coug, Kawamoto was making important connections with future WSU mentor Kevin Stevens (’17 MS CPD), who shares Kawamoto’s passion for sports nutrition.
“I was at a sports nutrition conference in Arizona right before I was about to start at WSU, and I actually met Kevin in line for lunch,” remembered Kawamoto. “Then when I got to Spokane, I reconnected with her. It’s such a small world.”
Stevens is a retired Air Force veteran and registered nurse who also spent more than 10 years teaching at the WSU College of Nursing. Juggling her faculty position while taking classes across campus, Stevens completed WSU’s MS CPD as well to add registered dietitian nutritionist to her resume. Today she runs a sports nutrition consulting company in Spokane.
“What motivates me the most is really helping athletes understand that if you want to be a really great athlete, it takes nutrition,” Stevens said. “It can’t just be training every day.”
In 2019, Kawamoto and Stevens reconnected when Stevens was contracted to do sports nutrition work with student-athletes at Gonzaga University. It was the perfect fit for Kawamoto’s required community rotation hours and helped shape her graduate school experience.
“I really appreciated getting to see another sports nutrition program,” Kawamoto said about the experience. “Working with Kevin was awesome. She showed us what a sports nutrition program should look like and what is needed to work with different athletes.”
Because Gonzaga doesn’t employ a full-time dietitian, Stevens helped provide resources for not only Gonzaga’s athletics programs but also the students she mentored.
“One of my objectives was to develop nutrition education materials with information on the best nutrition for every sport,” said Stevens. “For the interns, I wanted them involved in evidence-based research for performance sports nutrition for each sport. For example, how do you fuel a soccer athlete versus a cross-country runner versus a tennis player? It’s always a little bit different.”
While the Department of Nutrition and Exercise Physiology’s MS CPD is not necessarily sports-focused, it does prepare students with that career goal in mind. Kawamoto is proof. She found exactly what she was looking for at WSU and it helped her pursue her dream career.
“I feel like everything I learned at WSU laid the base of my sports nutrition knowledge,” Kawamoto said. “The three areas of nutrition are community, clinical, and food service, and I use all three of those in my job every day.”
Kawamoto also tries to pay it forward when she can. She mentors UVA students in related fields and even encouraged one to apply to the graduate dietetics program at WSU.
“One of my favorite parts of my job is spending time with the students that help us,” Kawamoto added. “I love helping them achieve their goals and want to keep paying it forward since I benefited so much from my mentors.”
This story was originally published in NutrEx, the Department of Nutrition and Exercise Physiology newsletter. Read the latest edition.