Team Managers:
From the Sidelines
This week, the Daily Bruin dives into the stories of current and former UCLA Athletics’ team managers to shed light on an often-overlooked role.
Introduction
Editor’s Note: As an introduction to the Daily Bruin’s week-long series on current and former UCLA Athletics’ team managers, The Bruin’s Aubrey Yeo spent part of a day with UCLA women’s basketball team manager Molly Mann to gain a general outlook of the position.
BY AUBREY YEO
UCLA women’s basketball team manager Molly Mann stands next to a loaded equipment cart on a Monday afternoon practice.
She’s familiar with its contents: the orange cones and markers, the coaches’ whistles hanging by the side, even the box of jerseys containing different shades to mimic whichever team they’re play next.
On the days when she has the early shift, Mann goes to Pauley Pavilion 20 minutes before practice starts and wheels the cart and the rack of basketballs out to the court.
When she’s on the closing shift, she stays after everyone has left to make sure the equipment gets stored in its proper places.
“I kinda do feel like I do make a difference even though I’m there and I just sit there and run the clock, do stuff behind the scenes,” Mann said. “I do feel like when they win, I feel like a sense of winning, which I know sounds so lame, but I do feel like it’s a really rewarding job.”
During practice, the team manager has several duties depending on where she’s needed. She could be running the shot and game clocks at one point, assisting in a drill the next or standing by the sidelines next to the ball rack, ready to hand a ball over.
In games, she keeps track of whichever stats she’s assigned to by the coaches and also helps move the equipment around during timeouts.
On certain days Mann and her counterparts can be spotted outside of Pauley wheeling a cart full of laundry into the Acosta Athletic Complex – she does whatever the team needs to keep it running.
Many UCLA teams rely on team managers to pitch in for their grunt work; the responsibilities they each have may vary from program to program, but more than anything, they’re part of the team.
“They’re all looking for a way to stay connected or make UCLA, which I think is a really big place for some people, and try to make it smaller,” said women’s basketball Director of Operations Pam Walker.
Team managers attend practices and games; they wear the same team logo on their chests as the players.
They may never get to score the clutch point or make a defensive play in the dying minutes of a tight game, but team managers still form part of the cogs that make up the machine that is UCLA Athletics.
“I just admire people who are willing to do that job of being a manager,” said women’s basketball coach Cori Close. “It is really thankless. They make the program go, we could never be good without them, but they get very little credit.”