The NFLs sticky, sweet halftime snack? Orange slices

Publish date: 2024-05-06

Robert Turbin could not believe it. He had carried the ball 10 times in the first half of the first preseason game of his rookie year, and now here he was, sitting at his locker at halftime, with a giant bowl of bright citrus in front of his face.

“I got really excited,” Turbin said. “I’m like, ‘I love orange slices. This is awesome. You guys have orange slices in the league, too???’”

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Like most of us, Turbin’s association with orange slices stretched back to his earliest memories of sports. There were orange slices at halftime of his Pop Warner games in the Bay Area, orange slices at some of his high school games and even orange slices at halftime of every Utah State game. But Turbin did not expect the tradition to carry on in the NFL, so he was caught off guard when the Seahawks’ strength coach held out the bowl of slices in 2012.

Turbin’s initial enthusiasm, however, was momentarily replaced with indecision. Should he take a couple of orange slices, or should he pass? What was the protocol in the NFL? He had no idea. Turbin looked around the locker room, searching for any clues from some of the veterans on the team. Finally, when he saw a few of his teammates digging in, he gladly did as well.

“Hell yeah,” he said.

Stefon Diggs thrust orange slices into the spotlight in the final game of the regular season. CBS cameras caught Diggs flossing on the sideline, which he explained on Twitter. “Practicing good hygiene,” Diggs wrote. “Everybody know how the orange slices be.”

Indeed, orange slices are a staple at halftime in just about every locker room in the league. The Colts and 49ers, the Chiefs and Bengals, the Ravens and Bucs and Seahawks all have them — for good reason. It is actually a requirement in the NFL’s game operations manual that each home team provide “three dozen sliced oranges for halftime” for the visiting team (Home teams must also provide, among other things: 500 pounds of ice, 3 cartons of gum, 1 large pot of coffee, 150 wash cloths and 3 dozen bananas).

So, yes, orange slices have been around the NFL for years. All the way back in 1986, they were front and center of a rare halftime blowup by normally mild-mannered Washington coach Joe Gibbs. Looking to light a spark, Gibbs yelled. He screamed. He bent a couple of chairs. And he sent a tray of pop — and orange slices — flying across the locker room. Washington rallied to win the game, no doubt inspired by the discarded slices.

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Cornerback Richard Sherman was an orange slice guy with the Seahawks. Tight end Matt Schobel downed the occasional slice during his time with the Bengals and Eagles, he said, “probably because I’m a fat ass and just saw something to eat.” The great Barry Sanders took it to the next level: He was known to kick his feet up at halftime and devour a tangelo.

Over time, NFL teams have increased their halftime options to include everything from PB&Js and chicken broth to energy bars and fancy gels and capsules (Not to mention Uncrustables. NFL players really seem to like Uncrustables). But orange slices refuse to go away.

For more than a decade, Jon Torine was the Colts’ strength-and-conditioning coach. Any meal the team served, be it in hotels, on flights or at halftime during games, technically fell under his umbrella. And yet, he never once recalls ordering orange slices — or even talking about them.

“I’m not sure how the hell the orange slices got there,” he said, almost in amazement. “I don’t know that I spent more than two minutes of 17 years in the NFL ever thinking about orange slices.”

But sure enough, every game day he would see a big pile of orange slices in the middle of a table in the middle of the locker room, right next to the gum and tape. “They just seemed to show up,” he said.

All these years later, it makes him laugh. How did they get there? He has no clue.

“This could be the great mystery of the orange slices,” he said poetically.

Alas, the mystery is solved with a quick phone call to the Colts PR staff. Turns out, like Santa’s helpers or secret lawn gnomes, the team’s equipment managers took care of the orange slices behind the scenes each week.

There is always one.

Nick Hardwick is an affable, gregarious fellow who is usually a blast to talk to. At times throughout his career with the Chargers, he dabbled in orange slices, particularly when it was hot outside. Then a nice, cold refrigerated orange hit just right.

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Having grown up with orange slices at halftime, Hardwick can also appreciate the nostalgia of each bite. “You have these happy memories, that little dopamine release,” he said. “You’ve got to think, tensions are incredibly high at halftime, right? So you come into the locker room and it’s like, ‘Here’s a peace offering of orange slices.’ And then the coach proceeds to break the overhead projector and slam a chair down.”

Soon, however, he revealed his true colors. He is not an orange-slice enthusiast at all, but something worse. “Orange slices do absolutely nothing,” he went on. With each sentence, his disdain and contempt seemed to rise. “What a waste of time. You talk about how fast you get depleted on a football field with carbohydrates, and they’re going to give you half of an orange and act like everything’s cool?”

He was not done. “They’d always just be in a cardboard box, cut up in quarters, and they’d just walk by and stick them in your face and everybody would just take them. Like, ‘Oh, yeah, sure, an orange slice.’ You think back on it and you’re like, ‘Ugh.’”

Hardwick is not wrong, not exactly, but he is missing something intangible. As he got off the phone, though, he at least offered an olive branch. “Sorry to be an orange-slice hater,” he said, laughing.

Dr. Susan Kleiner started working with NFL teams when the field of sports nutritionists was nothing more than a handful of people. Her first boss was Bill Belichick, who hired her with the Browns when only a few teams worked with a dietician. “He was waaay ahead of his time,” she said. Those were the dark ages. Players and coaches believed you shouldn’t drink fluids during games, or that you’d cramp if you drank cold water.

Best as Kleiner can remember, orange slices were always part of the halftime ritual, a word she uses intentionally. The job of a sports dietitian is “art as well as science,” she explains. Most players grow up eating orange slices, not only when they first start out, but often in high school and college as well. Over time, it becomes a small part of their game-day tradition.

Years ago, Kleiner worked with a gold-medal-winning swimmer. Before meets growing up, the swimmer’s dad would take her to McDonald’s, where she’d order a Big Mac, fries and a chocolate shake — a ritual she adhered to, even in the Olympics. Kleiner didn’t set out to get rid of the tradition entirely — after all, it was rooted in good memories, and the swimmer had won a Gold medal doing it — but Kleiner suggested a few tweaks to the order. More recently, Marshawn Lynch gobbled up Skittles in the pros, for no other reason than it’s what he did as a child.

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“So there you go,” Kleiner said. “You’ve got oranges still at halftime. Now, is an orange enough to fuel an NFL player for a second half? Um, probably not.”

Orange slices do give a little carbs and a little fluid, she said, so that’s positive. And if that’s what players want, why mess with it? Plus, Kleiner added, “Those orange slices got them to the NFL, for God’s sake.”

Robbie Tobeck always appreciated the quality of the oranges in the NFL. But he did not appreciate one thing: They left his hands sticky.

Tobeck was picky on game days. If his jersey wasn’t taped to his pads the right way, it would drive him nuts. Likewise he had absolutely no tolerance for the sticky hands he developed after downing a few orange slices. So Tobeck, a center for the Falcons and Seahawks, always took a few moments to wash his hands before heading back onto the field.

Tobeck knows the power of orange slices, and not just from his playing days. For several years, he coached his daughter’s youth soccer team. One of his major responsibilities every week was coordinating the halftime and postgame snacks with parents or else face the backlash.

“Because at that level, you’re going to lose your team if they don’t have orange slices to snack on at halftime,” he said matter-of-factly.

Tobeck gets it. He understands. When told a brief summary of Kleiner’s views on the psychological significance of rituals like orange slices, even in the NFL, his voice perked up. “So basically what she’s saying is that the NFL guys are no different than my youth girl’s soccer team.”

(Photo: Associated Press)

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