Ann Grandjean, a pioneering figure in the world of nutrition, has died.
Grandjean was the founding director of the International Center for Sports Nutrition and director of the Center for Human Nutrition — both on the University of Nebraska Medical Center campus — and a nutritional guru to the Husker training table.
During a career that spanned four decades and brought national acclaim, the Texas native worked with Husker athletes and Olympians, Native Americans with diabetes and malnourished babies.
“She invested a lot of heart and soul into helping better the standard of international nutrition,†her youngest daughter, Nicole Grandjean, said. “She always felt called to do basic nutritional work.â€
Ann Grandjean died in Plano, Texas, on Jan. 6. In her last years, the 77-year-old had suffered from several neurocognitive disorders, including Alzheimer’s.
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In the late 1970s and '80s, Grandjean served as chief nutritional consultant to the U.S. Olympic Committee. She advised professional sports teams, including the New York Yankees, Chicago Bears and Kansas City Chiefs.
She worked with Coca-Cola to develop Powerade, which, in 1988, became the official drink of the Olympics.
She worked with the World Health Organization to improve infant formula in the wake of the AIDS epidemic in Africa.
She traveled three weeks out of every month. She paced her office talking on a phone with a 50-foot-long cord, conducting hundreds of media interviews annually. She mentored female colleagues.
“She loved working with athletes,†Nicole Grandjean said. “She always said athletes did what she told them.â€
Grandjean gave advice to the first female winner of the Lincoln Marathon, JoAnne Owens-Nauslar.
“She was my resource for ‘what should I be doing here?’†Owens-Nauslar said. “She was on the cutting edge of things about what we knew about women and their athletic and nutritional needs for training. She was truly a trailblazer.â€
Grandjean’s influence was felt far beyond Nebraska, said Boyd Epley, Nebraska's assistant athletic director for strength and conditioning. “She was a tremendous resource. She had a great mind.â€
Grandjean began studying hydration during graduate school, noticing that athletes admitted to the hospital in Lubbock, Texas, where she did clinical rotations, were suffering from dehydration and improved with adjustments to their diets.
She stressed the importance of proper hydration throughout her career.
“Water, or the lack of it, is the only nutrient that still causes death in athletes,†she told The Lincoln Star in 1988. “And that’s really sad, because a heat-illness death is 100 percent preventable.â€
Her daughter remembers joking with her mom about her two-pots-of-coffee-a-day habit and her mom responding by saying coffee is not a diuretic — then conducting research with other nutritionists to help prove it.
Years later, a box showed up at Nicole Grandjean’s office with a nutrition textbook inside. Her mom’s research was cited. “Now I can die,†Grandjean had joked when her daughter called.
It was the only time Grandjean had ever shared her accomplishments or public recognition with her family.
“My mom was a great mom,†she said. “She was incredibly humble.â€
And a Texan who grew to love sports in Nebraska.
“She was just the biggest die-hard Husker fan, on a different level than most fans,†Nicole Grandjean said. “She knew all the ins and outs of the players and what their goals were and how dietetics were related to that.â€
Ann Grandjean is survived by her daughters Nicole Grandjean and Cassie Grandjean-Moody of Plano, Texas, two granddaughters and one grandson.