Meet the vegetarian lineman recruit who could play football in a power conference

When you imagine a top high school offensive lineman, you probably picture a 300-pound guy who throws back burgers, steak, and bacon.

2018 college prospect Travis Spreen is not one of them. Well, he is almost 300 pounds, but while he is one of the top centers of the 2018 recruiting class, his meals don’t consist of burgers or steak — or any meat. Spreen has been a vegetarian since the fourth grade.

“It’s pretty awesome,” the Oregon native said. His dad first made the move to become a pescatarian (someone who only eats fish) then jumped to a vegetarian and got Spreen’s family on board.

“I watched the food documentary ‘Forks Over Knives,’ which educated me about the benefits of being vegetarian and helped me learn about the meat industry,” Spreen added.

He said he started going meatless because he thought it would be “a good challenge,” but has stuck with it since. The junior loves veggies so much, he even has one in his Twitter handle, @spinachjr66, which he said he made in sixth grade, but isn’t sure why he put spinach.

The top recruit hopes to keep up his lifestyle once he gets to college, he said, but he recognizes that some schools have more specific diet regiments laid out for their players.

“If I have to give it up when I go to college, I will,” Spreen said.

Here’s what the center typically chows down on throughout the day:

And here he is in action:

As Spreen gears up for his senior year, he has had no shortage of college contacts. He has received offers from Ivy League schools Yale, Brown, Princeton, and Columbia. More recently he’s been talking to larger nearby West Coast schools like Cal, Oregon State, Oregon, Washington, Washington State, and USC, he said, as well as East Coast schools UVA and Duke and football powerhouses LSU and Stanford.

Spreen is on track to follow in the steps of former NFL tight end Tony Gonzalez and running back Arian Foster, among other successful vegetarian and vegan pros. Both Foster and Gonzalez started out as vegans, and kept up their performance for a few months, but both ended up dabbling in vegetarianism before landing on mostly plant-based diets with small amounts of white meat. Foster also cites Forks Over Knives as one of the factors that pushed him to go without animal products.

In a professional league where players eat about 6,000 calories and 200 grams of protein a day, it can be difficult to meet nutritional needs and play at a high level with only a plant-based diet. Most NFL players who make the switch have to work with doctors and professionals, and many have to adjust their diets, depending on their positions.