Look good, fuel good, play good.
Don't mind the minor change to a phrase popularized by an NFL icon.
Minnesota on Friday announced Ben Hawkins as its Head Performance Dietitian, Joe Distor, Jr., as its new Head Strength Coach and Chad Bari as assistant performance coach.
Hawkins, the former L.A. Chargers assistant team dietitian (2023-24) will oversee nutrition services for the Vikings, including helping design player-specific nutrition, performance and recovery plans.
Distor is joining the Vikings after working in 2024 as a strength & conditioning associate coach with the L.A. Rams. Prior to that, he was the associate head strength & conditioning coach with the Houston Texans from February 2019 to March 2024.
After more than a decade at Wake Forest (2013-24), Bari is joining the NFL ranks.
Hawkins is a graduate of Purdue University and previously served as a sports nutrition fellow in 2022 for the Chargers. He'll work in collaboration with Minnesota's Health and Performance Department to provide optimal nutritional strategies for Vikings players – and likely even Head Coach Kevin O'Connell.
Hawkins was the subject of an "Everything An NFL Dietitian Does On Game Day" video shared one month ago by the Chargers, and in it disclosed L.A. coach Jim Harbaugh's halftime meal: a plain hot dog.
The video gives a glimpse of Hawkins' former role, which involved coordinating and executing nutrition operations, managing day-to-day nutrition logistics, including menu development and meal planning, as well as implementing nutrition injury recovery protocols and creating educational resources for players.
Before entering the professional ranks, Hawkins earned bachelor's degrees in Nutrition and Dietetics and Nutrition, Fitness and Health at Purdue. He gained hands-on experience with Purdue Sports Nutrition, assisting the operations of student-athlete fueling stations across campus from 2019-21, and progressed his career by serving as a dietetic intern for Duke University Sports Nutrition in the 2021 football season.
In February 2024, the Chargers digital team spotlighted Hawkins as part of Black History Month.
The most rewarding part of his job, he said, is aiding athletes' goals through optimal nutrition.
"I work with the players to help maximize their health, development and sports performance," Hawkins explained, adding he was inspired in college to pursue becoming a sports dietitian. "I got started by being an athlete, myself, and noticing the difference in my energy levels and performance depending on what I ate. I decided to study nutrition and exercise science at Purdue University, and the rest is history!"
Distor first entered the NFL in March 2016 as an assistant with the Chicago Bears, a role he held through January 2019.
While earning his undergraduate degree in kinesiology from Arizona State, Distor interned with the sports performance program. He graduated in 2014 and followed by earning a master's degree in exercise science (with an emphasis on performance enhancement and injury prevention) from PennWest California and worked with the UCLA football team as a graduate assistant.
Distor earned a graduate certificate in exercise rehabilitation for sport injuries from Australian Catholic University in 2022.
Bari first joined Wake Forest as assistant director of sports performance in December 2013 and was promoted to the director for the football program in January 2021. In that role, he designed, implemented and coached the football team's strength and conditioning program, emphasizing performance optimization and injury prevention and worked closely with the sports medicine staff to establish return to play protocols.
Bari graduated from Youngstown State University with his Bachelor of Science in Exercise Science and Human Performance in 2012. He finished his degree with an internship at Bowling Green State University, working in the strength and conditioning department. He was then hired full-time as an assistant strength and conditioning coach in May of 2012, leading the strength and conditioning programs for baseball, softball, men's and women's soccer, swimming, tennis, track & field and men's golf.
