THE FACEOFF 🤼: Gayle Jones & FuelBoxx 🎙️

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THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 24, 2026 · THE FACEOFF · VOL VII

Watch or listen to Episode 1: YouTube · Spotify · Apple Podcasts

Everything But Nutrition 🍎🎙️

This week's FACEOFF 🤼 has a guest in the chair for the first time. Gayle Jones spent twenty-five years producing the biggest properties in sports television, went inside JPMorgan Chase to run brand video, and then watched her daughter get cut from the top team at her soccer club and knew why before anyone said it out loud. She built FuelBoxx to fix it. Episode 1 of The Coach's Board podcast is nineteen minutes with her; the links above get you there. Below is the written version, for the people who would rather read on the train than listen in the car: our founder Paul Variano's questions, and Gayle's answers trimmed from the tape.

Twenty-five years in sports television: the NBA on TNT, the Olympics, the NFL, HBO. Then Chase, then a studio, then a founder. What triggered each move, and what led you to FuelBoxx?

“I am a natural storyteller by trade. I didn't get any of those jobs because I was a huge sports fan at the time. I got that initial job because I wrote an essay about my favorite Olympic moment, and instead of an actual play or run or swim, it was about Muhammad Ali's courage when he had the torch, how he carried that torch with Parkinson's. A display of courage that touched me. That first job was the Nagano Olympics, and then I went into the NBA on TNT and TBS. My dream job was Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel. Got on that show, told amazing stories, because with the longer formats you have time to really unpack them. It's been bigger than anything I could have dreamed of as far as a career.

The bank situation is really interesting. I was pregnant with my second child, doing freelance work for the NFL, traveling a ton, and my husband said, you've got to get off the road. I can't be a single dad. I jokingly said, find me a job where you work. He said, I work in finance, there's no job here for you. To be stubborn, I looked, and I found a job in marketing as a brand storyteller. JPMorgan Chase had a sports and entertainment department, so I got to keep telling stories around the sports properties they own.

Then my husband got an opportunity in LA. I went in to quit and they said, you don't have to quit, you can work from LA. A couple of years later I got approached to work at a studio, and, when in Rome, I took the chance. It was also the time of all the writers' and directors' layoffs. The industry was imploding, and our studio went under. And my daughter was going through a change with her club. She was on the top elite level and she got cut, put on the regional league. Nothing hurts worse than something with your kids. She's played soccer since she was five. It's the only thing she's ever loved. I knew instinctually it was because she had a growing body and we weren't paying attention to what she was eating. I just flippantly said, I'm going to start a company called FuelBoxx, where we provide nutrition for athletes but we also teach them how to fuel for their performance and their recovery. That's how FuelBoxx was born, out of my own need to help my daughter through a rough time.”

What has it actually been like since you founded it? The challenges, the wins?

“It has been a faith walk. I say that honestly because I've had to operate totally differently from when I was a television producer. I've had to unlearn the perfection of television producing. A live television producer has to have everything perfect, because you get one shot: the graphics built, the stories researched, everybody knows their role. That perfectionist is the furthest thing you'll find from entrepreneurship, because it's the opposite. You have to go live before you're ready. You can't wait until everything is perfect as a founder. You have to get out in the market and let the market teach you what it needs.

That happened to me really quickly, because I started direct to consumer, and I realized acquiring one family at a time was going to be a hurdle. You spend a lot of marketing dollars acquiring one family. I had to pivot to organizations and clubs and schools. My real audience was the athletic directors. What we do now is stand up a digital storefront for every school, school-branded, school logo, and the athletic director shares it with the parent population, and parents opt in and buy. When you go through an organization, you get multiple families.

The product is a pre-game kit and a recovery kit. FuelBoxx is founded on simple, real food, because when you think sports nutrition you think protein shakes and supplements and adult things, but we're talking about a kid. Pre-game, it's an energy bar, pretzels for sodium, applesauce, dried fruit, and always, always, always hydration. Recovery is the same idea with a protein element, within thirty to sixty minutes of the activity. I'm learning that I have to follow my instincts, and that sometimes those instincts aren't right. When I make those mistakes, that's when I learn.”

An athletic director is usually thinking about uniforms and the cost of ice or turf. The only food-and-beverage decision is how much Gatorade powder to order this year. What has that engagement been like?

“That is what drew me to this in the first place. We have an increasingly professionalized youth sports world. We move our kids through professional trainers and facilities and travel and the most expensive clubs and uniforms. Everything but nutrition. No one was thinking about nutrition for the youth growing body. It's easy to have these conversations with athletic directors because they're not thinking about it. It's the last thing people care about when it should be the most important thing. And the reason it's not being addressed is that it's another thing for them.

That's where FuelBoxx has made it easy. All they have to do is share the link, and the parent decides whether they want it for their child. They don't need to become a retailer. They don't need to manage inventory. They have enough on their plate. But having an option, so their kids aren't on the sideline eating Doritos, the feedback has been really great. There are a lot of clubs out there that don't offer anything.”

Is there a difference between what a six- or seven-year-old needs and what a sixteen-year-old needs?

“What good looks like really changes as kids grow. An eight-year-old doesn't need to eat like a high school varsity athlete. They're smaller, their practices are shorter, their fueling needs are different. At that age it can be pretty simple: eat a normal meal the night before, a normal meal before your game, stay hydrated, have something small and easily digestible right before. By sixteen or seventeen, my daughter's age, that equation changes. They're bigger, the training is more intense, they may be practicing five or six days a week with strength training, games, tournaments, and they're still growing. Now we need to pay much more attention to what the kid is eating: enough carbohydrates before the activity, enough fluids, enough protein and carbs afterward to recover.

I honestly think this is where parents struggle. We hear ‘sports nutrition’ and parents panic. They think of protein shakes and supplements and all this professional-athlete stuff. Kids need just simple, good nutrition. It's about what they eat, the timing, and how much they need based on their age and activity. Parents shouldn't need a degree in sports nutrition to know how to fuel their kids, and that's what they feel right now.”

Who's responsible for an athlete's nutrition? They're at home, at school, on the field. Is it shared, or is it mostly the athlete?

“The old phrase ‘it takes a village’ has never been more true. Everybody plays a part. If you're a club director, ask yourself: do we actually have a fueling plan in place for our athletes, or are we leaving everything to our families to figure out on their own? If you're a coach, start talking about fueling as part of an athlete's preparation. You talk about sleep and training and how an athlete shows up. We should also be talking about what they put in their body the day before, during, and the day after. If you're a parent, look at what your child is eating around their sports schedule that week, but look without judgment. Notice what they eat before practice, what they eat afterward. If you're picking them up, what are you showing up with? What are you handing them? Are you stopping at a gas station? Those are the insights that led to FuelBoxx.”

It's Monday morning. An athletic director, a coach, a parent just listened to this. What's the one piece of advice for somebody building a product or a service in this space, or thinking about the nutrition of their young athlete?

“The first thing I'd say is that it is such a worthy cause. What could be more important than paying attention to what we fuel our kids with? It matters on so many levels, even beyond sports. So my advice is to stick with it, because it's worthy and it will change the future of our kids. Continue to fight for real food, real ingredients, things that make our kids healthier in mind and body. Look for options that are natural. Make sure they understand hydration is so important. And keep building, because it's going to take more than one company out here to change this environment. I say all of these things to you as I say them to myself: keep going, stay consistent.”

The takeaway. What is real is the category question, and it's a sharp one for anyone holding a budget. We have professionalized every line item around a youth athlete, the trainer, the facility, the travel, the uniforms, and left the pre-game meal to whatever is in the vending machine by the locker room. Her Monday-morning list is the operator's checklist. If you run a club, decide whether you actually have a fueling plan or you're leaving it to families. If you coach, put fueling in the same sentence as sleep and training. If you're a parent, look at what you hand them in the car, without judgment.

Find Gayle and FuelBoxx: fuelboxx.com · Instagram · FuelBoxx on LinkedIn · Gayle Jones on LinkedIn

Follow The Coach's Board: YouTube · Instagram · X · TikTok · thecoachsboard.com

LOOKING AHEAD ⏭️

Next Thursday’s FACEOFF 🤼: Rob Thompson, the All-American lineman who helped take NFL FLAG around the world in the nineties, then an Arena League general manager and a serial founder, now building GamePlanU, on how far down the commercial pathway actually reaches into youth sports. Know an operator, founder or coach we should feature? Just hit reply.

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The Coach's Board by Paul Variano
The weekly executive roundup for youth sports leaders.