More and more, student managers get into March Madness game
Last week, before it played a single game in the Missouri Valley Conference tournament, the Illinois State men's basketball team held a raucous locker room celebration.
Water was dumped on heads. "We Are the Champions" blared.
But the players weren't celebrating their own win. They were celebrating their student managers, who had just won Manager Madness, the MVC's 3-on-3 student manager tournament played on the same Scottrade Center court as Arch Madness, the MVC's actual tournament.
"It's a cool thing to have that bond with the players and the managers," said Dan Muller, the Redbirds' head coach. "To see them win the championship and celebrate with them was really neat."
College basketball student managers are in charge of everything off the floor; towels, water, uniforms, even orange slices. But often the night before games, they're in charge on the floor.
That's when they engage in pickup games on the same courts where they will work the sideline bench one night later. Such games used to be limited to matchups with archrival schools, but managers across the country have taken it to a whole new level with competitive games occurring late into game days.
"Most people when they think of the term 'manager', they think of them as just water boys or towel boys, like kind of geeks because if they were an athlete, they would be playing," says Scott Besko, a senior manager at Michigan State.
"But a lot of them are like me. They were good players, but they didn't want to continue playing at the smaller level."
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The managers in the Big Ten have developed a league, with standings, records and a Twitter account that tweets out scores and confirms games will be happening. Ian May, who helps oversee the account, says its follower base has gone national among college managers and college basketball fans in general.
"We've been getting followers from all over the country — Florida State, Auburn and some other SEC and Pac-12 schools," May said.
When managers from Ohio State and Maryland faced off in January in Columbus, the account tweeted out that famous Final Four alumni and current team staff members Greg Oden and Juan Dixon would be participating.
ESPN analyst Jay Bilas tweeted out manager game scouting reports of Michigan State and Iowa, which Spartans coach Tom Izzo showed his team during a film session. Bilas, who May calls the heart and soul of manager nation, has been a proponent for games between the managers of the Final Four teams each April.
"Anything like (a postseason tournament) would be so cool," Bilas said. "And to celebrate the contribution they make, because what they do is really hard.
"The one thing I don't want to do is add work to their plates because they have a lot of work to do already. … In most ways it's a thankless job. It's being the offensive lineman; they do all the hard work and nobody seems to notice unless they're another offensive lineman."
Bilas has been unable to attend any of the games because they frequently occur as he is preparing to call the next day's televised game, but he still monitors the different leagues.
"Boy, it's hard to beat the Big Ten," he said. "The Missouri Valley Conference doesn't get the credit that it deserves. Power Five. They're ridiculously organized."
The Big Ten established their manager league and schedule this year. The Missouri Valley managers have had an organized circuit for a few years and last year established Manager Madness.
The first Manager Madness had eight out of ten teams represented, first one to 21 winning. Illinois State beat Northern Iowa by two for the inaugural championship last year, and Bradley was runner-up to the Redbirds this year, with Northern Iowa third.
VIDEO: WATCH ILLINOIS STATE CELEBRATE
Grant Peterson, Northern Iowa's head manager, explained the thought behind the 3-on-3 manager tournament. "We said, 'Our players are competing against other teams. Why can't we?' We just took it to the next level."
Unlike the Big Ten, Missouri Valley Conference teams don't travel with a full managerial staff, making it difficult for the MVC's student managers to schedule games during the regular season. "I'm the only manager that travels," Peterson said. "So we can only play one on one."
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Team players and coaches frequently inquire about the results of the manager games and offer suggestions about strategy. Muller asks jokingly if the games are videotaped or have scouting reports. "When we lose, our coaches say maybe we should film ourselves and then break down the film to get better, just like a real team would," Peterson said.
Michigan State's Besko said, "It's always good when Coach Izzo knows and hears that we win and stuff like that. … We don't want to disappoint them and come back and tell them that we lost, so we usually try to go out and put in the effort. When anyone asks, we're normally pretty fired up about it."
The excitement is spreading, too. Student managers in the Big East, SEC and ACC have started to play their own games. Florida State graduate manager Dan Torres said it's a great opportunity to get to know the other managers across the country.
"A lot of managers want to coach and get involved with basketball at some point, so (the games) a really good way to network," Torres said. "You get to know other managers and hear about other programs and how things are run as opposed to here at FSU. It's good to build relationships like that."
Muller, whose assistant Luke Yaklich was a Redbirds student manager — and eventually a roommate — when Muller was a Redbirds player, sees the games as building good vibes too.
"There's a phrase I use sometimes: Big time is where you're at," he said. "And this is big time for those guys, just like it would be big time for anybody else. We see ourself as a program that does a lot of the same things that a Michigan State would do.
"Our managers, they get to compete and be a part of a program and when they compete, they're competing for pride just like anybody else. Our guys know they can play."
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