Job Hunting

Well, ladies and gentlemen, the season is officially over. We have entered what I like to call the post-postseason. Obviously, it's an abrupt change for anyone involved in the basketball organization when the season ends. It requires a shifting of gears for the players, the coaches, and of course, the managers. As I watched the seconds tick off the clock in the final game of the season, I also watched my job disappear. There is no demand for a manager in the post-postseason (Except for the office work I'm going to be dragged into every few weeks between now and summer vacation). I am sad to see the season come to an end because this also means I have to leave the luxurious and disillusioned world of college basketball (where the only important thing is getting the W) and return to the real world (where people expect me to be productive with my time: volunteer, study, work, etc) ... And let me tell you, adjusting can be very difficult. No matter what job I find, they probably won't let me wear sweatpants and t-shirts all the time. Very few employers will feed me as well as the basketball department. Not to mention, I have to apply for these jobs. The application process for becoming a manager was very simple and took place via email:

Me: Hi there. I would like to be a manager.
Boss: Sure! Come on in and we'll set up your work schedule!

In hindsight, I should've been slightly more skeptical of a job that was so easy to obtain. I now know for future reference that a job that does not require an application, a letter of recommendation, or even an interview is probably a job that nobody wants.

But that is beside the point. I've taken some time in these past few weeks to apply for a few summer internships/jobs/etc. and I've had the same problem on all of them... It is nearly impossible to make "college basketball manager" sound legitimate. No matter how I sugarcoat it, my job is just a slew of menial tasks that require little/no brainpower. Most of the job applications have a section titled "Previous Work Experience" and as I fill it out, I wrestle with wording and exaggerations to try and cover up the truth about my joke of a "job." I'll show you some examples.

Job Title
What I Wrote: ______ University Women's Basketball Team Manager
What I Should Write: ______ University Women's Basketball Indentured Servant

Dates of Employment
What I Wrote: September 2009 - Present
What I Should Write: September 2009-March 2010 [6 month break] September 2010 - March 2011

Major Responsibilities
What I Wrote: Assisting with practice: setting up, rebounding, running the clock. Capturing and editing film. Assisting with office work.
What I Should Write: Assisting with practice: standing around with a basketball in my hands, fetching basketballs out of the bleachers, googling random things for Coach (like the time he wanted me to find out what type of monkey lives in the Mayan Riviera valley of Mexico). Addressing envelopes and folding camp brochures. In general, avoiding all film and office work and hope that the other managers pick up the slack. And of course, my most important responsibility: Making sure all the players are hydrated at all times.

As I wait to hear from my potential summer employers, I sit back and watch the managers that are lucky enough to still be employed (hopefully your March Madness bracket looks nothing like mine). I'll admit that I am slightly jealous of the Duke managers, even though they probably work 100x harder than I do. And I can only imagine what it would be like to be a manager for uConn - talk about job security!

My Song

Since some members of the team I work for have an (unhealthy) obsession with Taylor Swift, I thought it might be appropriate that I simultaneously pay tribute to my job and the great country star whose music consistently shows up on long road trips. Now, I'll be the first to admit that my parody song-writing skills are subpar ... but the basic idea is there. Enjoy.

(For those of you who don't know how the actual song goes... you should probably climb out from under that rock you are living under and click here)

MY SONG

I was riding shotgun, with my polo on

In an empty charter bus

It’s a shopping trip, got my list in grip,

Getting food for us

I shop around, put the junk food down

Boss says “Only granola please”

I say nothing, I am just thinking

About post-game munchies

And I think

My song is a buzzer-beating shot

Sneaking out late, trying not to get caught

When I’m at the store again, I thought

Who drank the Gatorade that I bought?

My song is a buzzing scoreboard

The first game “Man, I didn’t see it when that b&#)@ scored”

And when I got home ‘fore I said amen

Asking God if we could play them again.

I was walking to the charter bus

After shootaround one day

Went extra long, the bus smelled wrong

Like the trash I’d thrown away

Got to the Hilton, ready to run

To my hotel bed

I almost didn’t notice all the coaches

Who made me carry their luggage

My song is a buzzer-beating shot

Sneaking out late, trying not to get caught

When I’m at the store again, I thought

Who drank the Gatorade that I bought?

My song is a buzzing scoreboard

The first game “Man, I didn’t see it when that b&#)@ scored”

And when I got home ‘fore I said amen

Asking God if we could play them again.

I’ve been to every city, jumped on all the hotel beds

Waiting for something to come along

That was as good as my song.

My song is a buzzer-beating shot

Sneaking out late, trying not to get caught

When I’m at the store again, I thought

Who drank the Gatorade that I bought?

My song is a buzzing scoreboard

The first game “Man, I didn’t see it when that b&#)@ scored”

And when I got home ‘fore I said amen

Asking God if we could play them again.

I was riding shotgun, with my polo on

In an empty charter bus

I grabbed a pen and an old napkin

And I wrote down my song.

Daydreams

My apologies. It's been awhile since my last post. It was finals week. And as I have always said: Academics first, blog second. (Manager third)

When I became a manager, so did two of my friends (Shout out to LK and Scwhartzy... Misery (and miserable jobs) loves company.) And like any good group of college freshmen, we always traveled in packs. We developed a sort of buddy system so that we never worked alone and that made practices much easier to get through. We would sit behind the clock and chat about normal manager things. We would come up with elaborate plans for how we were going to make the basketball players our friends, even the intimidating ones. We would talk about what we wanted to be when we grow up. We would play lots of games. Like "Who Can Fold 50 Camp Brochures Faster?" One of my favorites was The "Question" Game. For hours, we would go back-and-forth with questions like these:

- "Which coach would you want to be your mom?" (Obviously not the crazy one)

- "If you had to be stranded on a desert island with one of the players, which one would it be?" (One that doesn't snore)

- "Which player would be the best older sister?" (Doesn't matter, Mom & Dad would love them more because they're talented)

- "How many shots do you think they have taken in their lifetime?" (We figure about 500,000)

- "Factoring in clothes, food, free trips, how much do you suppose we make per hour?" (... Then we realized we would make more in a Chinese sweat shop)

Keep in mind, it’s not that I have a lot of free time. It’s that my job requires me to sit there and do nothing but wait to be needed. I never thought being a basketball manager would require so much time and so little work... And now that my manager-friends have moved on to bigger and better things, I have to take on the task of entertaining myself during those long practices. So with one hand on the shot clock and a blank stare on my face, I delve into a dream world where anything is possible...

1. In dream world, being a basketball manager means getting a badge, a pager, and a moped.

2. In dream world, female basketball players can dunk.

3. In dream world, the other manager doesn't fall off his chair and isn't a total spaz.

4. In dream world, all the players make all their shots. I never get hit in the face with an airball and I never have to chase a long rebound into the stands.

5. In dream world, I can pull pranks without getting in trouble... I would glue all the marker caps to the markers and then watch the coaches struggle to pull them off. I would put on coach's jacket after he throws it to the ground and continue to distribute water and towels in it (see below: Throwing Things). I would write "That Wasn't Water..." on the inside of all the water cups (I'm definitely going to do this one. Dream world or not. I'm just waiting for a non-toxic, waterproof marker). And I would address all players as "Miss (insert state name here) Basketball" and bow graciously for an entire day.

Boom. My boss slams 100 purple envelopes and a silver sharpie down in front of me. "Address these, please" and I'm back in the real world.

Rudy

Ever seen the movie Rudy? It's the sports movie about the under-sized, under-skilled football player who overcomes adversity and eventually walks on the the Notre Dame football team in 1975. In the final home game of his senior season, Rudy gets a chance to get into the game and he sacks the quarterback. He is carried off the field. Everyone chants his name. He's a hero. Beautiful story, right?

It's because of over-achievers like Rudy that I can't go a week without being asked if I took my job as a manager as part of a ploy to get on to the team. Now, if you know me, just the idea of this is hysterical. To give you an idea of my skill level: I stand at 5'7'' with shoes on. In high school, I was more known for my glowing personality than my talent. As the starting point guard, I averaged more assists than points. I once ate a Snickers bar during a free throw. I often performed a choreographed dance to "Soulja Boy" during halftime of home games. Granted, I was heavily recruited by Loras College... (DIII, Dubuque, IA, Mascot: Duhawk?) But I'm also pretty sure my brother set up a fake email account, pretended to be my coach, and gave them my mailing address as a joke. Meanwhile, girls on the basketball team stand well over 6 feet tall. While I have multiple "Most Improved" awards and participation medals, they have multiple state championships and MVP trophies. They received legitimate scholarship offers from several DI schools. I think it's safe to say they take their basketball careers slightly more seriously than I do. So nowadays when people ask me if I plan to walk on to the team, I can only laugh and say "You've obviously never seen my jump shot." I am very content with sitting behind the bench rather than on it. But to be honest, I haven't completely ruled out the idea of trying out for the team...

I will join the team if all of the following conditions have been met:

1. It's the championship game.
2. The star of the team gets injured and I get to wear her jersey.
3. I take (and make) the game-winning shot.
4. Someone makes a movie about it titled "Remember the Manager".

Okay, okay. So realistically, this will probably never happen. But that doesn't stop my dad and I from joking that I will one day make the transition from manager to walk-on Division I basketball player. Usually brought up at family gatherings and dinner parties, it goes something like this:

Dad: (loudly) So, tell Grandma, when is the NCAA going to clear you to play?
Me: (loudly and proudly) Soon as I pass the drug test, Pops! *Fingers Crossed*
Mom: *shakes head, disapprovingly*

Reliable for a few laughs here and there, it's a good way to remind people that I in fact have absolutely no desire to play college basketball (not like I have a choice, I don't think college basketball wants me either). I value my sanity, my freedom to eat desserts, and my Saturday nights/Sunday mornings way too much to give them up. Sure, it would be cool to say that I played college basketball. But there are over 3,000 female college basketball players in the NCAA and only a few hundred college basketball managers. It should technically be cooler and more impressive to say I'm a manager, right? (Don't worry. I know it's not. I'm just saying it should be.) So for now, I think I'll stick with trying to find dates instead of lifting weights... At least until Warner Bros and I work out the movie rights.

Lowering Your Standards

If your eyes are old (or if your cornea ulcer is acting up...) and can't read the cartoon, click on it and it'll get a lot bigger!

Paid In Experience

I was not warned about all the heavy-lifting I would be doing when I started this job. There's something blatantly ironic about carrying things for 15 of the most fit, able-bodied students on campus, but I do it anyways. They also failed to inform me that working ~15 hours/week and traveling on weekends would really interfere with any "normal" social life I anticipated having in college. Top it all off with the janitorial work that I did not sign up for: sweeping the gym floor, cleaning out the fridge, etc. and there are a lot of reasons not to become a basketball manager. And yet, here I am.

Why on Earth would I choose to be an unpaid basketball manager (read: slave) when I could be doing keg stands and joining random student organizations like The Happiness Club? (Mom, if you're reading this, please replace "keg stands" with "study sessions" and replace "The Happiness Club" with "The Pre-Medical Honor Society")

Sure, there are the obvious perks: like the free clothes and early registration for classes. (Thankfully) I can usually count on two free meals per week to offset the dining hall's lack of appeal. And of course, getting to know the players is definitely one of the best parts of my job. But I think it was somewhere between the charter jets and the surf-and-turf dinners that I officially forgot all about the less-glamorous parts of my job. While I'm busy jumping on hotel beds all over the country, my peers back at school are showering with shoes on. When I'm freaking out about a half court buzzer beater to send the game to overtime, my friends back home are untagging subtly ugly pictures of themselves from last weekend. It's also refreshing to have a boss and to be held accountable for something. Especially in college, when hardly anyone from the real world acknowledges your worth (see: unpaid summer internships). The networking is great too. You'd be surprised how many semi-famous people are connected to women's basketball. I've also heard that having several 6-foot tall friends can come in handy when you get into a bar fight/need a light bulb changed/want to see over a large crowd... Although, I haven't personally exploited this yet.

So while thought of getting paid in experience still makes me cringe, I've started to accept that there is more to this job than just handing out water (Keep in mind. It is still mostly just handing out water). If anything, I'm getting some fantastic stories.