Standing on a stage in Scottsdale, Arizona, at the American Sports and Performance Dietitians Association's 17th annual conference, Ted Harper's career with the New England Patriots came full circle.

It was at his first ASPDA conference in 2012 where he met former director of football/head coach administration Berj Najarian, who after three tries convinced Harper to interview with the Patriots. Now going on his 14th season as the team's head sports dietitian, Harper was back at the conference to accept one of ASPDA's most distinguished accolades.

"I'm not a big awards guy, but I knew how important this award was," Harper told Patriots.com after accepting the ASPDA's Excellence Award, which recognizes the highest quality of care to athletes and extraordinary dedication to the profession, on May 15.

"I was torn on whether I would attend because I'm a guy who wants to be in the facility every day I possibly can be to put the team first and be available to my guys. But the other part of me that won out knew that this is such a prestigious award within the field of sports nutrition and that it would be disrespectful if I didn't show up."

Before then, Harper never had such a direct platform to share words of wisdom gained only through extensive experience with elite athletes – whether they be those winning Super Bowls in the NFL or the heroes serving our country in the United States Army's Special Operations Forces.

In an eight-minute speech, he shared the three ways every dietitian should go about building trust with their athletes and soldiers.

The principles were those he lived by when working with running back LeGarrette Blount to help him drop weight, with cornerback Stephon Gilmore to help alleviate his in-game cramping, or with running back Brandon Bolden to help him beat cancer.

"By being present, engaged, and consistent is how you build trust with all these people here in the building," Harper shared. "That's my mission."

Originally from Shelbyville, Indiana, Harper was a multi-sport athlete growing up.

He hoped to play college sports one day, but after only receiving basketball offers for smaller Division III schools, he figured it would be more advantageous to attend a bigger school to get an education. Still, the idea of pursuing a path in sports nutrition wasn't on his radar.

After his first year studying building and construction management at Purdue University, Harper landed an internship with his uncle in Laguna Beach, California, that likely came with a job offer upon his graduation.

As much as he loved his lifestyle, playing basketball and beach volleyball every day, Harper realized he hated the work.

Knowing he needed to pivot, and without telling anyone in his family, he called his advisor for some guidance. He missed sports, but didn't know what options were available to him. At the time, sports nutrition was a niche field, with very few pro or collegiate sports teams employing dietitians. But once his advisor put that idea in his head, he never looked back.

Harper double-majored in dietetics as well as nutrition, fitness, and health. Then he went on to the University of Utah to earn double master's degrees in exercise sport science and sports nutrition and worked with U.S. Speedskating as a strength and conditioning intern and sports nutrition consultant.

Finishing school, as he learned, would just be half the battle. Even with dual master's degrees and experience working with Olympians.

"When I came out (of school) I applied to five big-time universities that are well known across the country, and all five of them told me no," Harper said.

"It was somewhat of a humbling moment for me, but I didn't hang my head."

Harper moved back home to Indiana for the summer and worked at a Lifetime Fitness to make money and at least apply his education in practice. Around this time, the Obama Administration gave the military funding to hire contractors such as athletic trainers, physical therapists, and dietitians to outfit their units.

Harper sent his resume to recruiters, and soon after found himself moving to Alamogordo, New Mexico, to work with fighter pilots at Holloman Air Force Base. Harper impressed through his work with tactical athletes and advanced after just a few months.

"While I was there at the Holloman Air Force Base I ended up getting a call from another unit," Harper said.

"They said they knew the work I'd done with fighter pilots and that my resume was perfect for them if I wanted to take the next step up within the military to work with Special Operation Forces. They loved me, hired me, and I had to get a top-secret government clearance to work within the unit. There, I worked with some of the coolest men and women – not just protecting our country – but coolest men and women in general. I thought I found my dream job because there was just one of me, you know? In that position there was just one tactical sports dietitian in the world."

Harper was in awe of the soldiers he worked with.

He saw the level of time, effort, and sacrifice they had to put in to reach that level of the military, and how much physical and mental training they endured to support the United States to put the country first.

Harper knew he could potentially stay with the United States Army for the rest of his career and would probably be happy doing so. Still, in the back of his mind, he wondered if he might one day return to sports. He was torn, but more than content enough where he was than to seek out other opportunities.

Ultimately, the opportunity came to him while at his first ASPDA conference.

Members of the Patriots organization, including Najarian, were in the lobby holding interviews for a new sports dietitian. Harper was tapped on the shoulder to interview but politely declined. He felt it would be disrespectful to the men and women he was working for within the military to pursue a role in the NFL while he was on the job.

The Patriots were persistent, however, and continued to persuade him to meet with them each day of the conference.

Harper called his boss at the time, who is now the 13th Commander of the United States Special Operations Command, to get his blessing.

"I called my boss, General Fenton – at the time he was Colonel Fenton – just to tell him what was happening and keep him in the loop," Harper said.

"I didn't want to go behind his back, and he ended up telling me that if I was considering going back into sports in the future, that there's no better opportunity to do that than with the New England Patriots. He was rooting me on and really wanted me to get the job, and if I did, his parting advice to me was to win as many games as we possibly could unless we were playing the Steelers. He is a Pittsburgh fan."

After an extensive interview process, Harper flew up to Foxborough as one of four finalists for the Patriots job.

Thanks to former head coach Bill Belichick's adoration for the military, Harper's experience stood out. Harper could discern an individual's learning style, translate sports science to elite athletes, and knew how to keep information private -- very private.

"There's really a lot of crossover because of the caliber of athlete you're working with, and I just felt like (Belichick) appreciated that. I was very buttoned up and ready in my interview with an air of confidence, because I already had my dream job," Harper said.

"I wasn't seeking this out, because a part of me did want to stay where I was, and I think Bill just respected all of that."

Before he left New England, Harper was told he had the job and was essentially starting immediately.

Harper made good on most of the advice he received from his former boss, though the Patriots beat the Steelers much more than General Fenton would have liked. But before helping New England players win three Super Bowls over the course of his tenure, he had to start with fixing the diet of one future Patriots Hall of Famer.

"My first test was to walk up to Vince Wilfork to have a conversation with him and judge his plate," Harper recalled.

"Bill wanted me to tell Vince, to his face, what I thought about his plate and how he could eat better for his body and his performance. So, I'm meeting him for the first time and telling him what to do. Bill wanted to see how I would handle that situation because it was probably the most difficult, hands-on experience you could have put me in as a trial for my interview."

Coming from a background with Special Ops soldiers, Harper took the challenge with the defensive tackle head on.

Over the course of time and many encounters, Wilfork and Harper's relationship grew stronger. No one had sat down with him to explain things quite like Harper had, and Wilfork became very curious about nutrition.

"When he goes into the weight room with our strength coaches, the player knows why he's doing that, but when he comes into the dining room, if there's no education behind it, he's just going to put whatever he wants on his plate with no understanding of why, eat, and walk out," Harper said.

"Our goal is to really teach the player the why. Why are you going in here beyond the fact that you're hungry, or you like something? Why are you putting that on your plate? What is it going to do for your body right now and in the future? How can you perfect your regime to support your career? Just by consistently showing up every day and engaging with them, learning about them, teaching them, you build up trust with all these guys where they want to listen to you."

Harper worked to help Wilfork shed 25 pounds, but at his lowest playing weight, Wilfork didn't feel as comfortable taking on some of the double-teams he formerly handled. The duo worked to get some weight back on, but this time, with balance and better understanding.

"Wilfork was out there on the sidelines with little fun-size Snickers bars, eating chocolate and sharing them with the referee, jokingly trying to bribe them to look the other way," Harper said.

"He is such a character, but he was one of my favorites."

With the diversity that makes up a football team on and off the field, every individual player Harper works with has their own unique goals and needs.

Some players must stay big to play their position but struggle to keep that weight on. Nutrition is vital in helping linemen, tight ends, linebackers and some running backs not only keep weight on their frame but also ensure that their muscle mass to total body weight ratio is where it needs to be to play their positions optimally.

Others need to cut weight, as was the case with Blount when he signed with the Patriots as a free agent in 2013. After working with Harper and decreasing his sugar consumption, Blount was able to play running back at a lighter weight than ever before.

Harper shares that James White also needed to lighten up, but his picky eating posed a challenge.

"Trying to get him to try new things was tough because he was admittedly a picky eater and wanted to stick with what he knew, but he trusted me to add a few things to his regimen to help fuel him and get him going for practice," Harper said of White.

"He ended up changing his body pretty drastically from when he got here to when he became a starter, and it was really mostly nutrition-based – a lot of small things he changed in his diet."

Over the course of his time in New England, Harper has seen a lot of change in athletes' mentalities when it comes to diet.

Not many players took nutrition very seriously when he got there, he says, save for legendary quarterback Tom Brady, now synonymous with the strict diet that kept him on the field into his 40s.

But with time, players have grown increasingly aware of nutrition and how important it is. Now, it's become a foundational pillar of most of their regimens.

Harper says Patriots players like Brady, Julian Edelman, and Gilmore really took nutrition to the max, and their buy-in made his job much easier. Hearing those team leaders tell their teammates to "listen to Ted" went a long way, as one could imagine.

But as Harper revealed, no one took the nutrition component as far as longtime captain Matthew Slater.

"The whole world knows about the Tom Brady diet, but in this building, the person's diet that really everyone wanted to model was Matthew Slater's," Harper said.

"His dedication to nutrition and always doing the right thing and always making the right choice. He'd give himself a small dessert maybe once a year and was so strict on himself because he was training his body 365 days of the year, essentially. He knew that he wanted to play a long time, and he had a really long, successful career. I think we all hope one day he's in the Hall of Fame, but he knew that nutrition was that important to his career – just like everything else he applied himself to. He admitted that nutrition played a big role in his career and I appreciate that."

While Slater and Brady used their nutrition to achieve longevity, former Patriots safety Patrick Chung enlisted in Harper's help to modify his body and best match up with his coverage assignment on any given week.

If Chung was taking on an agile tight end who could move like a receiver, the safety would lighten up to keep up. If Chung needed to play in the box to cover a larger, blocking tight end, he'd put weight on to take them head on.

"Working with him night and day, adding mass or taking it off of him at the drop of a dime throughout the week, we were really micromanaging everything he was doing because of how versatile he was for our defense," Harper said.

"That was some of the coolest stuff I did was working with Pat. I've never tweaked someone's body mass week in and week out like that with the Patriots."

Harper's work with Patriots players goes far beyond managing weight, though.

Gilmore struggled with cramps leading up to his time in New England, as well as early on in his stint with the Patriots, forcing him to miss snaps as games progressed. Harper and the Patriots strength and conditioning staff came together to evaluate his hydration and weekly workload to troubleshoot the issue. Once Harper devised a hydration and supplement protocol to ensure Gilmore was getting sufficient fluids, electrolytes, and buffering agents, cramping was no longer an issue.

Harper enjoys success stories like these, because it's easy to see his work have an impact on game days.

Sometimes, the stakes were much higher, though.

Leading up to Super Bowl LIII, Harper caught wind that Dont'a Hightower was experiencing a serious case of food poisoning after leaving the team hotel for a meal in the middle of the week.

Belichick and Jim Whalen, the Patriots vice president of sports medicine and performance and head athletic trainer, tasked Harper with making a detailed protocol that would help get Hightower feeling better as soon as possible. The linebacker couldn't keep food down initially and was dehydrated, so a plan was set to refuel and rehydrate.

"Hightower and I were basically tied at the hip from mid-week to kickoff, working together to get him feeling better," Harper said.

"Every ounce of fluid, the quantity of electrolytes, the specific foods he needed to eat, and the specific quantities of food to consume in a given amount of time were all thoroughly mapped out for Hightower to help feel better quickly and to help him visualize what needed to be done nutritionally. The entire process needed to be slow and intentional to where each gradual step within his nutrition plan was double checked to make sure nothing within the plan set Hightower's recovery back. This was a process that, unfortunately, couldn't be rushed despite the battle against time."

Hightower barely practiced the week leading up to the Super Bowl, but trusted Harper's nutrition plan. Come game day, no one knew Hightower had experienced food poisoning, and the way he helped the Patriots defense dominate against the Los Angeles Rams gave no inclination.

"As the game was being played, Hightower was out there flying around the field, and nobody noticed any difference in him," Harper said.

"I felt like I did my job getting him healthy and ready to play, and Hightower did his job on the field. They call him Mr. February for a reason."

The linebacker finished the game with two sacks, three quarterback hits, two tackles for a loss, and a pass breakup. The Patriots hoisted a sixth Lombardi Trophy thanks to the effort.

As significant and rewarding as getting Hightower back on the field felt, Harper's most high-pressure challenge came later that offseason, when Patriots running back Brandon Bolden learned he had cancer.

After noticing a mass near where his upper neck meets his jaw, Bolden was diagnosed with mucoepidermoid carcinoma, a type of malignant salivary gland cancer.

Bolden shared the news with Harper and the Patriots, with the caveat that he wanted to treat the disease while continuing to play football. Not only did he not want to miss any time on the field once the season started, but he wanted to battle cancer through diet and surgery, not chemotherapy.

"After Bolden told me that he wasn't going to pursue chemotherapy and wanted to control the cancer through diet alone leading up to surgery and post-surgery, I felt like he put all of his trust in me and our doctors to not only to help him continue to play football but also with his life," Harper said.

Harper devised an immensely strict ketogenic diet to potentially help inhibit growth in Bolden's tumor. The rationale, as Harper explains, was based on the observation that many cancer cells rely heavily on glycolysis and carbohydrates for energy, whereas ketone bodies, produced through a ketogenic diet, are less efficiently used by malignant cancer cells.

The theory, essentially, was to "starve" the cancer cells to prevent them from multiplying through a diet very high in fat, low in carbs, and moderately low in protein.

Bolden received 70% of his calories from fat sources, and his carbs primarily came from vegetables though he received some from nuts and seeds that also provided him additional fat and protein. While his protein portions seemed so puny, especially for a professional football player, the Patriots continuously monitored Bolden's muscle mass and body fat through testing to see the impact the ketogenic diet was having on his body composition.

The running back followed this strict diet post-diagnosis through surgery, which required removing part of his skull as well as implanting a metal plate in his head. Well after the operation, Bolden remained diligent with the diet to ensure he was cancer free.

"After we learned that he was cancer free, it was a moment of immense relief for so many reasons," Harper said.

"Bolden could continue playing football, but more importantly, he could continue being a husband and a father within his family. I was just glad I could play a small role in helping him get better."

Bolden went on to sign with Miami the following season and played in all 16 games with the Dolphins, before a second stint with the Patriots from 2019 through 2021 and two seasons with the Las Vegas Raiders after that.

With stories like these, it's easy to see why Harper was nominated for the ASPDA's Excellence Award by Baltimore Ravens director of sports nutrition Sarah Snyder, who also serves as president of the Professional Football Registered Dietitian Society, or PFRDS.

Beyond his job with athletes, and formerly soldiers, Harper's voluntary work as vice president and a founding member of the PFRDS has, for years now, pushed the profession forward and helped get team dietitians a seat at the table to advocate for NFL player nutrition and safety.

When Harper joined the field, sports nutrition was just emerging. Now, by inspiring others through his work, he continues to help it grow.

"It was an honor because I'm aware of those who've won this award before me," Harper said of winning the Excellence Award.

"I think what was even better than receiving the award was the amount of young registered dietitians and students that approached me to tell me I'm the reason they decided to be a sports dietitian – whether they watched the "Do Your Job" video the Patriots put together about me, attended a class where I was a guest speaker at Purdue University, or received a phone call or email back from me offering words of wisdom and mentorship. It was so cool that so many people pulled me aside to share their story with me."

Harper's eight-minute acceptance speech emphasized the importance about building trust by showing up, being engaged, and being consistent with athletes. These same principles he applies to sports nutrition are also crucial other aspects of life -- especially, in the making of a good team and its support staff.

Harper followed these pillars from one dream job to another to find his calling and help Patriots players prepare for every rep and snap they take.

"Across all these other disciplines, we get to join together to help all of these players become better," Harper said.

"Just being part of that team within a team has been very fun and rewarding because you get that culture and feeling that we all rely on each other. I'm very competitive, so I really want to win at everything I do. I want to win at the biggest things I do and the smallest things I do. To be able to help these players change their bodies and see the fruits of my labor on Sunday out on the field – that's the coolest part of my job."

DISCLAIMER: The views and thoughts expressed in this article are those of the writer and don't necessarily reflect those of the organization. Read Full Disclaimer