Former NBA team dietitian brings decade plus of experience to Mayo High School athletics

ROCHESTER Luke Corey has been across the country, working with athletes of all ages, from young kids to NBA stars, in the sports performance industry.

He brings more than 15 years of experience as a registered dietician to Mayo High School, where he is the new strength and conditioning coach for the athletic department.

So what led him to the Spartans? ADVERTISEMENT A native of Canada, Corey found himself in Rochester with an opportunity to work for Exos as a performance dietitian at Mayo Clinic Orthopedics and Sports Medicine just more than 11 years ago.

Corey worked with Mayo activities director Dan Christoffer at Mayo Clinic in the sports performance program for approximately a decade, and the pair kept in touch.

They also worked with the high schools former strength coach, Jenny Noiles, who recently took a job with the Kansas City Current in the National Women's Soccer League, leaving an opening at Mayo High.

I have always admired his attention to detail and ability to connect to the athlete, Christoffer said of Corey.

We have an amazing strength and conditioning staff at Mayo High School with Donny Holcomb, Cory Urban, Jered Smiley and recently Jenny Noiles.

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We value these positions as they help our student-athletes with strength, agility, power, flexibility and speed to perform at their best, but also can reduce chances of injuries, keeping our teams healthy.

Corey has lived in Rochester on and off for about six years.

Through Exos, he also worked with the Los Angeles Lakers through UCLA Health Sports Performance and was the team dietician for the Minnesota Timberwolves from 2019 to 2022.

I've had the opportunity to work with young athletes all the way up to the pro athletes, Corey said.

What I like about younger athletes, and high school athletes, is that the degree of improvement is so much greater.

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When you're talking to a professional athlete, you're talking incremental increases that you're able to achieve, which can make a big difference, but they're so small that most people wouldn't even recognize what those changes are.

With a high school athlete, you can fundamentally change, just their entire ability and level of performance through proper strength conditioning exercises and techniques, through nutrition.

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And that's why I'm so excited to get to work with high school athletes again, is because you can take these athletes who may not have much of a strength conditioning background and you can kind of mold them like clay and really turn them into high performing athletes pretty quickly.

And you really get to see that ultimately (showcased) in their sport or their competition.

And so to me, it's just like the greatest gains are going to be at this age, this high school age.

Corey will work with the boys and girls basketball teams, among others.

ADVERTISEMENT I think it'll be a good resource, and he'll be able to implement some pieces of the puzzle that are putting our student athletes in a good position to succeed and be healthy, boys basketball coach Pat Franko said.

I think it'll be nice to have somebody who obviously has the strength and conditioning side, but also the nutrition side of things too, because that kind of gets lost, especially with younger people, the importance of nutrition.

At first, Corey will work with athletes after school during open gym hours, running training sessions for both in-season and off-season athletes, but he will also offer consultations throughout the day for any individual who wants more nutritional support and guidance.

Corey is still settling into his new position after starting last week, but said at some point he would love to be able to stand in front of all of the teams and talk about nutrition education.

He knows a lot of the teams wont be able to make it into the weight room during their season due to scheduling conflicts, and so he wants to create a program for athletes to use on their own or with their coaches during practices.

The goal is to be able to offer something to everybody, so that nobody gets left behind, Corey said.

Other teams, such as girls volleyball and football, hope to work with Corey in the near future.

Mayo athletics has been a very successful program for a long time, but there's always room for improvement, Corey said.

I'm super excited to get started with the athletes and really, hopefully show them something they've never really seen before from a training and nutrition standpoint, and ultimately, we'll see if that shows up in their games..

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