Utah women's basketball: Diana Rolniak copes with celiac disease

SALT LAKE CITY — Diana Rolniak is the type of person who thrives when faced with a challenge.

Her ability to fight through trials has been especially helpful over the past three years, as a sophomore on Utah's women's basketball team who has dealt with a handful of new obstacles, including leaving her home in Denver to start school at the University of Utah and taking on the workload that comes with being a college athlete.

Each of those became infinitely more complicated when she was hit with her biggest test: learning to live, and play basketball, with celiac disease.

"I just took it head on," Rolniak said of her July 2008 diagnosis. "I had already committed to Utah, and I just took it on as a new challenge in my life."

Celiac disease is an autoimmune disorder in which the body is unable to digest gluten, which is a mixture of proteins that appear in foods processed from wheat, oats, rye and barley. When Rolniak and others with celiac get gluten poisoning, they can be sick for days as their body works to recover.

"Everything you would imagine with a gastrointestinal illness, you have those problems," Utah interim head coach Anthony Levrets said, and Rolniak added that, "I'm going to be sick for a while and I can lose close to 20 pounds in one week."

She experienced just how devastating eating the wrong items can be during the summer before her senior year of high school, when the 6-foot-4 forward was trying to play basketball while dropping below 100 pounds.

As a result, Rolniak spent her first year at Utah focusing on how to maintain a healthy lifestyle while adjusting to living in Salt Lake City and being a college student and athlete.

After living in a group setting to start her freshman year, Rolniak has since set up specific living arrangements in order to prevent cross-contamination, including living alone and turning herself into a chef.

"I have to have a lot of control over my food; I do most of my own cooking," she said. "When I did have a roommate, I spent most of my time making sure things were kept clean and things were kept separate. It's kind of a consuming process."

Traveling with the basketball team adds another dimension to the daily grind. Fortunately, more and more restaurants have begun offering gluten-free menus.

"On the road, we've figured out the restaurants that cater to gluten-free … that she's comfortable with," Levrets said. "And all of the hotels we stay in, we make sure they're able to prepare gluten-free meals to go along with our pregame meals."