The Functions of a Student Manager for a Division One Basketball Team

A student in my Baseball and Statistics Course is also the student manager of Quinnipiac’s  Division One Men’s Basketball Team.

Everyone who watches a Division One basketball game understands what the coach does, what the players do, and what the trainers do. Did you every wonder what a student manager of the team does? I know I never understood the role of a student manager.

Being a manager for the men’s basketball team is a very rewarding job, but also one that requires an extreme time commitment. For starters, there are 30 regular season games spanning from November through the beginning of March. There’s also about 80 practices a season. We’re also typically asked to come in during their preseason workouts. For example, this year I started my job the second week of school. As the head manager, I’m expected to be at all events. It’s my responsibility to schedule my classes around being at practice for about 3 hours a day, as well as being available for games at night and traveling. A lot of this job is specific to what the coaches want, so a lot of specific tasks might be different at other schools, but a majority I would think are standard.

On practice days, I arrive at the gym an hour early. The first thing I’ll do is set up the court and bring out the equipment that we’ll need which includes the basketballs, the clock, practice jerseys, boards, etc. and fill up a jug of water as well as everyone’s individual bottles. If it’s the day before a game, I will also go around to all the players, coaches, trainers, and the other managers to fill out our food order, which gets delivered to us after games. During practice, I will either be running the clock and keeping score for drills, or I will be up giving the guys their waters and wiping the floor to clean up when people fall.

On game days, our days start with shoot around. This will typically be about 6 hours before game time. I’ll show up an hour early and set up the clock and bring out the basketballs and practice jerseys. During the actual shoot around, the clock runs down from 60 minutes so we typically just watch as the coaches walk the team through plays and personnel. For home games, I’ll come back to the arena an hour and a half early to bring our equipment bags out behind our bench and be there for if the players need anything. During the actual game, I’ll sit behind the bench and take notes on play calls. Our biggest job during the games is bringing out the chairs and water bottles during timeouts. We normally will have 2-3 people behind the bench and someone else is set up filming the game. Once the game is over, I quickly clean up and put away our equipment bags and check to make sure our food got delivered. After that is organized, we’re normally free to go.

For road games, we leave the night before and stay in a hotel. I put everything we need on the bus including those games bags and film equipment. If we’re eating on the bus, I’ll also put everyone’s food on their seat before they get on. Before we leave, I go in to the locker room and check with the players to make sure they have everything they need in their bags. In the morning, breakfast is normally at 10 AM and we’ll go right to shoot around after that. We’ll come back to the hotel and have our pre-game meal around 3 PM and leave for the game so we get to the gym about 2 hours before game time. The rest of my job at that point is the same as home games.

All in all, this is about a 5-month job where you work pretty much every day, Thanksgiving and winter breaks included. This group becomes your family, and even through the ups and down, I would definitely say it’s a special experience.
Eric Santos, March 24, 2017

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