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Xavier Legette, the second-year pass catcher for the Carolina Panthers, unquestionably has the most unique diet in the NFL. That’s because it includes raccoon meat. Growing up in Mullins, South Carolina—a town of three square miles, which had a population of 4,026 at the 2020 census, and is a two-and-a-half-hour drive from both Charlotte and Charleston—gave him an incredibly specific palate. Woodland creatures were a firm yes. Meanwhile, vegetables weren’t on his radar at all.
Last year, as a rookie, he brought some leftover raccoon to the locker room so his teammates could try it for themselves. That was also when Legette revealed that bell peppers are “too exotic” for his tongue. Of course, being a starter in the NFL requires a more comprehensive plate beyond just what’s in the backyard. Legette has started to open his diet to flora, not just fauna, and has also ventured into the Scandinavian side of wellness.
With his Panthers making marked improvements (they’ve already surpassed their win total from all of last season) and Legette becoming part of the furniture, he’s also secured his very own sandwich at Bank of America Stadium. He got into the making of that—as well as how to prepare raccoon—and his appreciation for pork belly, tubed meat, and America’s favorite pasta dish.
GQ: Last year, you made a lot of waves by talking about your fondness for eating raccoon.
Xavier Legette: Mmm-hmm.
Is that still part of your life?
Well, it’s not on the regular anymore, just for holidays. So, this Thanksgiving I’ll have some. This Christmas, I’ll have some. Memorial Day weekend, I’ll have some.
How do you prepare it? What's the best way to cook raccoon?
Well, we put it in a crockpot and we let the meat fall off the bone. We put it in a pan, put our seasoning and dress it how we dress it, and put it in the oven and let it dry out a little bit. You just bake it. But we keep a little tad bit of juice on it.
When you told everyone about this, were you surprised that no one else was really doing it? Growing up, did you think everyone was eating raccoon?
No. I didn’t really even think about it like that growing up. My daddy, he introduced it to me when I was a little man. Really, everybody that's on my dad's side of the family, all of them eat it. My mama's side of the family didn't really eat it like that. So, I was already up to it and hip to [the fact that] not everybody eat it.
Are you hunting the raccoon yourself?
Oh, yes sir. Yes, sir. Well, you have to run dogs to do that. Have a couple hound dogs, treed ’em, and then we shoot them right out the tree, man.
You ever feel bad about that?
No, uh-uh. That’s good eating. And they get big now. They look like mini dogs if you let them eat good.
On a typical game day what does your pregame meal look like?
I just try to eat a little pasta before the game. Well, the night before the game, only pasta. I don't go out to a steakhouse or nothing like that. Mostly all our games are at 1 o’clock, so I just eat breakfast in the morning time and then I’m ready to go. In the morning I just do eggs—scrambled hard—with bacon and ham.
I’ve talked to an NFL player who said they don’t eat at all before a game. I can’t imagine doing that.
I don't know how folks do that, man. We play too many plays.
Are you the superstitious type? If you have a good game, do you keep that same meal, or do you switch it up depending on your mood?
No, I don’t do it like that. In college, they used to try to tell me that I needed to do extra fueling before games. In college, most of my games was at 7:15 at night, so we used to have steaks and rice and all that. I used to try to do some extra stuff. Man, if I do a big play, I’d throw up because I had too much.
So, I stopped doing that. Now I just get a little small portion, a meal that's going to sit on my stomach and have me ready for the game.
The night before, what kind of pasta are we talking about? Are you making it yourself?
The chefs at the hotel make it. We just go chicken alfredo. We go potatoes, that's it, with carrots and broccoli.
What about at the Panthers facility? What are they cooking up?
They cook a lot of stuff, man. Last week we had some jerk chicken. Jerk chicken was so good, man. I had too many pieces of it. They had some cornbread muffins. They were pretty good, man. Pretty solid.
Once you got to the NFL, what were some things that you added to your plate that you never really had growing up?
Well, vegetables are really the main thing. Because growing up, I just used to eat chicken, steaks, pork chops. I just used to only eat whatever the meats was that my mom or my dad had cooked.
I didn’t even really eat rice growing up, vegetables, or nothing like that until I got a little older. Then once I got to the NFL, that's really when I started eating vegetables. The nutrition and the dieticians and all that, they always say greens are what make you sustain and be able to play in the league for a long time. I try to take heed, man.
What was that first meeting with the nutritionist like when you told them you’ve never eaten onions or bell peppers?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. They be trying to have that all in the rice and all that. I just tell them, “Hey, I don't eat this.” Then the Brussels sprouts and all that stuff like that, I can’t do it. I won't touch the food if it got all that in it.
Have you tried Brussels sprouts since then, or are they still a no go?
That’s still a no go. The only vegetables that I can give a chance to now is the asparagus, the broccolini, and growing up I did eat cabbage. But I like cabbage raw more than cooked.
Coleslaw is cabbage. You like coleslaw?
Well, the coleslaw that they have on the Masked Bandit [his signature sandwich], that’s pretty good. But the coleslaw they give you at restaurants, I don't like that.
You got your own sandwich at the stadium, the Masked Bandit. Walk me through this whole process. How did this happen?
It's pretty good, man! All it is is brisket with coleslaw, and we got the Masked Bandit. We based the name upon the breading. It looks like raccoon eyes. We partnered up together to make it happen.
I want to know about your snacking habits. What type of snacks do you make sure you always got in the pantry?
To tell you the truth, I don't even really eat snacks. You know how you have snacks at home, but you never touch them, but when you're somewhere else you want them? That's how I am. When we here at the facility, I just eat snacks here. They got peanuts, they got Slim Jims. I do like the Slim Jim things. I ate a whole box in one sitting.
But when I'm home, if I got snacks, they'll sit in that pantry forever.
Are you a boiled peanut guy? I know that’s a southern delicacy.
Oh yeah. Yes, sir! We go Cajun on the bottom, original on the top. I haven’t had none in North Carolina yet that top my ones in Mullins. I don’t know what they got going on.
If you're treating yourself and going out for a nice dinner, what's the food looking like there?
I'm going to go steak, mashed potatoes with bacon bits, broccolini or asparagus. If they try to be stingy with the bacon bits, I go whatever amount they give me, then I go [with] some pork belly in there. You gotta taste it, man. It give a baked potato a whole different taste.
You mentioned being introduced to the nutrition stuff when you got to the NFL, but you also have access to all the high-tech stuff now. Do you do the Normatec sleeves, the sauna, or anything like that?
Oh yeah, man. I never did a sauna until I got here. I do it every day, and the steam room as well.
What about a cold plunge?
I was doing that in college! They used to force us to do it in college. At practice, we couldn't even go do nothing else unless we got in that cold tub. It’s really for the long term.
As a wide receiver, I'm curious to know what kind of stuff you prioritize in the weight room.
Really, I just let the coaches—however they align it, I do whatever they do. But if it’s something that I know will get me too big, I take the weight down and just do more reps to keep me fit, more so than just to get me big. We have days where we do bench, and then other days where we’ll just do curls.
Thanksgiving is coming up, and I think people want to know what Thanksgiving looks like in Mullins, South Carolina.
We used to do the fried turkey. We used to do deer meat. We used to have squirrel, all that. My daddy used to cook it up, man!
We used to have chicken bog. Chicken bog ain't nothing but rice, sausage, and chicken with a little bit of chicken broth in it. That shit’s pretty good. It’s really like gumbo without all the juice and the seafood. We have mac and cheese, candied yams, dressing—but I don't eat dressing. We used to have so much, man. A table full of everything.
Did you ever help out at all? Can you cook?
I can do a little something, but I ain't never do none of that part. I was always outside, and just ready for the scream when they say, “Food’s ready!”
In Real-Life Diet, athletes, celebrities, and other high performers talk about their diet, exercise routines, and pursuit of wellness. Keep in mind that what works for them might not necessarily be healthy for you.