Episode 1: Gayle Jones & FuelBoxx— Everything But Nutrition

Four Emmys. Twenty-five years producing the NBA on TNT, multiple Olympic Games, the NFL and HBO Sports. Six years running brand video at JPMorgan Chase. And then Gayle Jones's daughter — a soccer player since she was five — got cut from the top level of her club, and Gayle knew why before anyone said it out loud: a growing body that nobody was feeding right.

That is where FuelBoxx comes from. Gayle is the founder and CEO. This is the first guest episode of THE FACEOFF, and it is a founder story told without the launch-story polish: the control-room habits she had to unlearn, the pivot she didn't plan, and a category she says youth sports has professionalized around while skipping entirely — "everything but nutrition."

What's in it

• The transitions. An essay about Muhammad Ali's torch got her to the Nagano Olympics. NBA on TNT, then the dream job at Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel. Then a pregnancy, an NFL travel schedule, and a husband who said "I can't be a single dad" — and a job in marketing inside a bank where nobody thought there was one.
• "It has been a faith walk." Live television is built on perfection: one shot, everything ready. Founding a company is the opposite — you go live before you're ready and let the market teach you.
• What broke. FuelBoxx launched direct to parents. Acquiring one family at a time was the hurdle, so she moved to programs: a school-branded digital storefront the athletic director shares once, and parents opt in. No inventory, no retailing, nothing new on the AD's plate.
• What's actually in the box. Pre-game: an energy bar, pretzels for sodium, applesauce, dried fruit, hydration. Recovery: the same idea plus protein, inside thirty to sixty minutes. Real food, on purpose — built with a sports dietitian, made for a kid, not a pro.
• An eight-year-old is not a varsity athlete. What good looks like at eight (a normal meal, hydration, something small before the game) versus sixteen (bigger bodies, five- or six-day weeks, real attention to carbs before and protein after). Parents shouldn't need a degree in sports nutrition to feed their kids.
• It takes a village. The question for a club director: do we actually have a fueling plan, or are we leaving it to families? For a coach: fueling belongs in the same conversation as sleep and training. For a parent: notice what you're handing them in the car — without judgment.
• The Monday-morning answer, rapid fire (best food city: New York; the broadcast for her tombstone: Real Sports; the concession-stand item that should be illegal: fake cheese on nachos), and where the Emmys live — and why she keeps them close.

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

If you run a club, a facility, a league or a team — or you're building something for the people who do — hit reply on any issue or find me at thecoachsboard.com. Follow the show wherever you're listening, and send this one to the athletic director who's still ordering Gatorade powder by the tub.