Managers relish privileged proximity
Tim Gross
Issue date: 2/5/10 Section: Sports
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Morgan's life, and the lives of the other managers for the men's and women's basketball teams, intertwines with the sport three hours every day for every practice, two hours for every game and everywhere from New Mexico to New Brunswick, N.J. Basketball gave Morgan an identity, a scholarship and a career path he never would have realized had he not e-mailed Anthony Solomon four years ago, asking to help Solomon's staff as a team manager.
"I'm not sure what exactly made me do it or why I started it," Morgan said. "No clue."
He liked managing so much, he has remained on the staff since, working his way up the ranks and committing to Bonaventure for grad school just so he could serve as the team's head manager for another year, alongside senior Chris Cole.
Only the two head managers on the managerial staff receive scholarship money for their efforts. The others work for little more than the experience.
"When people don't get scholarships, there's nothing else," Morgan said. "Road trips and gear. They get shirts, sweatpants, stuff like that. That's what they're working for."
Morgan and the five other basketball managers - the largest managerial staff in school history - send two people on the road with the team at a time. The head manager has the privilege of making every trip. The others divvy up the opportunities evenly.
On the road, they bond as they handle their duties as managers. They make sure the players attend meetings. They pack their equipment and do their laundry and hand out jerseys on game day.
"The players have really no control over anything," Morgan said. "We make their lives a lot easier."
The managers also take the players' food requests, ordering them one entrée and one appetizer from each restaurant. One player in particular stymies Morgan with his weird food selection.
"Chris Matthews," Morgan said. "He likes a lot of seafood that's like exotic seafood, like mussels and eel. There was actually one restaurant that had rack of lamb on the menu, and we discussed before we actually went out and did the orders, we were like, 'Chris Matthews is going to order the rack of lamb because he always seems to pick the weirdest things - and also the most expensive things - on the menu.
"Sure enough, he ordered the rack of lamb with mint julep sauce or whatever the hell it was. Who eats lamb on a road trip?"
The workload and the demand on the road establish a necessary bond among the managerial staff.
"On road trips, especially, we all have to work together to get everything done," Katie Zimmerman, a sophomore in her second year as a manager, said.
"You basically have to become friends instantly," Morgan said. "If you're not friends or there's no chemistry, it's not going to be a good fit for a year."
Back at Bonaventure, the managers work on practice preparation every day. Arriving a half hour before practice, they set up balls, water stations, clocks and supplies, and they take it down afterward.
And in between, they serve the water.
Morgan said without bottles for individual players, the team goes through 50 or 60 plastic cups at every practice.
"Picking them up is our job, too, so we try to limit the use of cups," he said.
On game days, the managers arrive an hour and a half before tip-off. Some handle water distribution duties. Some hand out the 15 towels the team uses per game. Some film the game and prepare DVD copies for other schools. All volunteer to carry out jobs no one else wants to do.
Like handling Andrew Nicholson's vomit if the stomach-bugged sophomore played in last Saturday's game against Dayton.
"Yep, that was going to be me," Morgan said. "I was told about four or five hours before the game to get a bucket, just in case Andrew played and needed to leave the game … I guess to vomit."
Nicholson sat out the game, and Morgan wanted to keep the news as quiet as possible before tip-off.
"I didn't know if Dayton knew about it, but I wanted them to plan for Andrew playing, just so it would be harder for them," he said. "But word spread around campus like wildfire."
Along with privileges that come with having inside access to the area's prominent sports team is the understanding that team managers keep inside information to themselves.
"That's part of our job. We don't want anything like that to come back to us because it's not us," Morgan said.
But that doesn't mean people don't ask.
"A lot of people are curious about what we do and the knowledge we have being on the inside every day," Morgan said. He added a lot of people ask about how the players treat him and the other managers.
"Andrew Nicholson is super friendly, and Mike Davenport. A lot of them keep to themselves," Morgan said. "Our job is to make sure their lives are easier. You do have to develop some sort of relationship with them."
Morgan has a unique relationship with Tyler Relph, who played for the Bonnies during Morgan's first year as a manager. This year, Relph returned as the director of player personnel and said he has looked at managers through a different lens as a member of the coaching staff.
"You realize what they mean and what they actually do to help the program," he said. "You get a new perspective on it. It's good to see it from this point of view."
To Morgan, the understanding is mutual.
"I have great respect for him and what he's done. That's something you don't realize as a player because they have the cockiness about them, the competitive spirit. And now he's, quite honestly, an old man."
While the assistant coaches give orders, Morgan's main contact is through the director of basketball operations, Matt Pappano.
Except when the managers make a mistake.
"Usually, when I mess up, I hear from Coach Schmidt. That's the way it goes," he said.
Morgan said he has come to accept the thankless nature of his job.
"What we do, we don't really get thanked for. That's something you have to understand," he said. "It's not like it's a negative personality feature of any of the coaches or anything like that. It's expected of us, really."
While Morgan has been through the routine for four years, the two head managers for the women's team - sophomores Matt Moretti and Jenny Nabrizny - are just starting to learn the ins and outs of managing a basketball team.
Splitting a half-scholarship, they only have one helper, sophomore Emily Costello, and don't understand how the six managers can function for the men's team.
"Sometimes we think about it, and it's like, 'How could you possibly function with five people there?' We'd be running into each other," Nabrizny said.
Morgan said bigger schools hire 18 managers. With only five other managers, he said the number of people and the number of jobs to account for can frustrate him.
"There's times you'll hear me complain about it, the hours, the people involved. Sometimes it gets on your nerves because it's such a big commitment, but I love game day," he said.
He enjoys the atmosphere, both at home and on the road.
"I've been taunted on the road by fans, which adds a level of thrill to it," Morgan said. "They find the worst possible things to talk to you about. At Mississippi State, I got yelled at to go in and play because we were down 50."
He also loves joining in on the cheering himself.
After USC's head basketball manager Stan Holt lost his job over arguing with officials last Saturday, Morgan said, "There have been times where I was close to getting a technical (foul). Sometimes I act like a fan. I get riled up. I love yelling at the other team when they mess up," he said.
Morgan understands the different perspective he has from the Bonnies' bench, something he didn't understand as an underclassman.
"By the time I graduate, I'm not going to ever be in the student section," he said. "I always thought about what would it be like to be on that side of it, that aspect. What brings you back to thinking that's okay is I like what I do. I like the access I get to the players, the team, even the security guards."
Morgan said a lot of people recognize him and know his role with the team, even the professors who are more than understanding when he presents them with dismissal forms and a legal excuse to miss class for a road trip.
"A lot of the teachers are huge basketball fans, huge Bonnies fans, and they'll do whatever they can to support the team," he said.
With grad classes taking place just once a week, Morgan said it is more difficult to keep up with the work.
Though they receive legal excuses from classes, Moretti said the academic demand is tough on the managers.
"The coaches still hold us to the same academic standards as the players," he said.
While the managers take care of their academics, they learn a lot about basketball, about themselves and about the people they work with.
"It's one thing in October when (the teams) start practicing," Morgan said. "New managers are gung-ho, ready to do it, and the old guys are ready to go back in the swing of things again. When we hit the part right now, in January and February when they play every Wednesday and Saturday through the rest of the conference, it's just a daily grind, and you see how people respond to that."
Despite the grind, the long hours and the monotonous practices, Morgan said he enjoys his experiences and the opportunities that come with working as a basketball manager.
"(Athletic Director) Steve Watson, (Assistant Athletic Director) Steve Campbell, I'm on a first-name basis with them," he said. "And that's something that the 'normal' student may not get,0 and they may not care to get. But it's something that I pride myself on, that people see what I do on a daily basis and they're appreciative of what I do to the point that they get to know me."
e-mail: grossts@sbu.edu
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