Dusty May, Ollie McLellan, and The Great Value of Being A Student Manager To Set Up A Career…

What do the reigning NBA Championship Coach and one of women’s sports most successful commissioners have in common Michigan’s Dusty May (good piece here by Yahoo’s Jeff Eisenberg) with people you may not know like Jack Richason, Will Conley, John and Joe Owen, as well as Lawrence Frank, the fictional character Ollie McLellan, and countless other successful people in and out of sports?

They were managers in college. Not managers of a store, or managers of a baseball team on the field. They were student managers…those hundreds of young people whose work behind the scenes doing all the little, often unnoticed things…keep coaches, athletes, recruits, staff members focused on their job on the field.

The two high profile former managers in addition to May and Frank…Oklahoma City Thunder coach Mike Daigneault and NWSL Commissioner Jessica Berman..were managers at the University of Connecticut (men’s basketball) and the University of Michigan (football and hockey)…and are just the latest examples of those who loved the business, loved the sport, loved the people and found ways to stay involved on a career path that did not really have a north star at the end. Frank, now the President of the Los Angeles Clippers, was a student manager at Indiana, one of a legion of former managers in Bloomington who have gone on to success in and around basketball and business. All are cut from a similar cloth, with the drive and passion that you hear in their voices that you believe will help them be successful. Conley, who I met at the World Congress of Sport two years ago, was a walk on punter at Michigan who found his way into a managers role and on to the field for the Wolverine’s national championship, all share one key quality in doing what they did to support the coaches and the athletes…joyful dedication…because that’s what managers do. They are not on the field, but they are as close as you can get, and have a great understanding of all the attention to detail that is needed to build chemistry and forge relationships.

How and why do I know so much about being a manager? I was one myself. First in high school for basketball, where we won a state championship in 1981 at Xaverian High School in Brooklyn, and then for three years for men’s basketball at Fordham, where I forged many of the relationships and the bonds with so many people that still exist today. Now the managers back then were more like Ollie from “Hoosiers” who I mentioned above. It was more about helping with practice prep, getting things like tickets aligned, and coordinating road schedules, and there were maybe two or three. Today for elite programs there are hordes of managers, many on scholarship for elite programs, doing everything from analytics to health and wellness training. It’s not just about keeping the scorebook. However, that’s at the highest level. Almost every team on every level has a manager behind the scenes. They are the worker bees, the ones who appreciate the time being out in on the court or the ice or the pitch, because often times they are THIS close to playing as well (some do in practice by the way…and there are legions of stories of elite women’s programs were managers, many of them guys, help in game prep by practicing against the best women at schools like Tennessee and UConn and even at Columbia) but for whatever reason can’t seem to actually put on the uniform, but they are usually quite invaluable to the team dynamic. I have often said that managers sometimes care even more than the athletes, because they see things from a different perspective. They are there shagging flies or rebounding when players need it, knowing that that is what is needed to help those who are playing get that much better, without they themselves hardly ever getting that chance. They do it for the passion and the joy of being a part of the team, without ever scoring a point.

Side bar to the Dusty May story as well…the Yahoo piece revolves around going to the Final Four as a manager and seeing what could develop for a career by meeting people. In 1987, myself and another Fordham manager, Mike Zuccarello, decided to give the Final Four in New Orleans that kind of a shot. No tickets, a hotel room and see what happens. As it turned out we were in the Sheraton in New Orleans looking for tickets somewhere in the building for the final…which was Syracuse and Indiana…and going down the escalator while we were going up was a guy we knew…former Manhattan College head coach who we harassed as managers for years, Gordon Chiesa, who was now on Rick Pitino’s staff at Providence, who had just lost in the semi-finals. Coach Chiesa waved and we met him at the bottom of the escalator to say hi and tell him what we were doing. He opened his jacket and too out a pair of tickets he wasn’t using, and we sat seven rows off the floor for Keith Smart’s legendary came winner against the Orange. It led to a lifelong friendship with Chiesa which I continue to benefit from event today.

I tried to look up how many leaders in any industry tied back to being managers at some point. Unlike athletes, there is no real hierarchy I can tell for managers where it readily comes up in discussions. Everyone wants to hear the stories of how so and so laced up for alma mater and what that was like to be on the court. No one ever asks what it was like to make sure the energy bars were aligned or the video was finished and the stats handed off. That’s for those behind the scenes who take pride in just being a fiber of the fabric of sports. However, when you hear someone was a manager, at least I can smile and give someone some extra time, because you know that person was putting in the time for the love of the business.

Now what do I think of when I hear someone was a manager, and why do I think they should get a second or third look every time? They have that passion and selfless joy, they have great attention to detail, they are strong time managers, they are curious learners, they usually can go beyond the emotions of a game to get stuff done, they understand the athlete/coach leadership dynamic, and they almost always show up early and certainly leave late.  They are also usually pretty amazing at helping maintain chemistry, and can be great listeners and sounding boards for leadership, and those playing things out on the field, because they can balance the elite needs with the hard business work.

I’d love to build the database for student managers and always seek to connect with those who have done it. Yes it has evolved more to a coach in waiting position at the biggest of the big, and we have some high level success stories to point to, but for most, they are in it for the love of the game and the path forward. Look around and ask, I’m sure you will find a few doing great work in any industry…and always wanting to give the credit to others. They just want to get stuff done.