It was 4:30 in the afternoon last Monday, and I started to think – why is the gym floor always so dust-free?
So I did a little of my fancy handy-dandy investigative reporting, and I reached an awe-inspiring conclusion.
Kris Kusnerik (’09). Yes, the man, the legend, the Kris with a ‘K’ himself.
Managers. We don’t give them enough credit. They carry the balls, they lug the equipment, they sweep the floors, they film the games, and they give encouragement. Yet, as fans, all we see is the game-winning shot, the last second save, or the bottom of the seventh grand slam home run (except not really because… who actually goes and watches a Maggie Walker baseball game?)
Yes, my friends, the managers are the ones behind the mask. They’re the ones who make the whole show run. The athletes and coaches are important, but the managers are what turn a team around. Let me provide a few examples.
We all know our field hockey team is one of the best in the state (top eight to be exact). Why exactly is that, though? It’s because they have something many of our other sports teams do not. It’s not the team unity they’ve built year after year, it’s not their drive to win and their passion for the game, it’s not their talent (okay… maybe, it’s a little bit because of their talent) – it’s the fact they have one of the best groups of managers the world has ever seen.
Zane Underwood (’09) and Hannah Gropper (’10) lined the field, set up all the equipment before games, kept score, ran the scoreboard, kept the equipment straight, and Underwood even went as far as making restaurant reservations for the state tournament. Gropper also made multiple six o’clock bagel runs for morning practices.
“Zane always skipped class because he was managing,” field hockey playerLindsey Elliot (’09) said.
Now, Girls’ Basketball has acquired three managers - Kusnerik, Lindsey Toiavao (’09), and Jamar Banks (’09) - for this season, and already, the team is on their way to a record number of wins. Standing tall at 1-0 after beating Armstrong quite convincingly 54-36, one has to think that it has more to do with the caliber of their managers than the actual players themselves.
“One of my goals this season is to be at least half as good a manager as Zane is,” Kusnerik said. “Zane is my managerial role model.”
Now, the opposite effect can be seen on other sports. Golf, wrestling, and baseball, to name a few, are all managerless, and coincidentally enough, they all also do not have winning records. But, it’s not as if these sports are lacking talent, have a dearth of team bonding, or are smelly (although wrestling kind of is) – it’s just that they don’t have someone cheering them on at every game, painting their fields, and recording their stats.
And it’s not that they’re not trying to find managers, either.
“We just want managers, preferably girls, who have to be able to bake cookies,” Lloyd Blake (’09), who is on the baseball team, said. “And they can’t do homework in the dugout – they have to enjoy watching us play. I don’t think we’re asking for too much.”
I don’t think so either. So invest in a winning tradition at Maggie Walker, and go become a manager!
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