Ten students are the backbone of LSU’s women’s basketball team.
The student managers play a behind-the-scenes role with an ultimate goal of contributing to the success of the Lady Tigers. They’re in charge of setting up and operating practices, preparing equipment, keeping game stats, doing laundry and participating in practice if passers or rebounders are needed, among any other miscellaneous tasks that arise.
The job is not easy though, they unanimously agreed.
“People say ‘Oh you’re the water girl?’ No, it’s so much more than that,” said sports administration sophomore Teejay Jones.
The managers arrive an hour before practice and games and usually stay an hour after the basketball game ends. For early games, the managers sleep in the locker room the night before to ensure everyone is focused and ready to work the next morning.
Following a bad game, an unsatisfied player called sports studies senior and manager Kaliegh Lussier at 11 p.m. to help work on her shot for a few hours. Lussier said that is part of a manager’s job, which helps the players and coaches do their jobs.
“You’re trying to alleviate all the stress off so the coaches can coach, the players can play and you think of anything else so they can do their job to the best of their ability,” Lussier said. “You don’t want to have them worry about anything. … As a manager, the number one thing is you have to think 10 steps ahead of 20 other people.”
After each game, Jones gets a copy of the game film, breaks it down and picks out every highlight for a two-minute motivational film to pump up the players before game time.
Most of the managers come from basketball backgrounds or just love the sport, but each manager works with the program to improve his or her chances at a successful career. Lussier, who played two years of college basketball, wants to be a basketball coach. Working under LSU coach Nikki Caldwell and managing the team is putting her one step in that direction.
“To be great, you have to be around greatness, so that’s how I’m going to instill myself with that greatness is to just be around it,” Lussier said. “Coach Nikki is one of the best role models you can have on and off the court.”
Graduate student and manager Darian Riley, who plans to coach in the future, receives learning experience daily by working with the team and considers his job the experience of a lifetime.
“I get experience being under coach Nikki Caldwell, who was under Pat Summitt,” Riley said. “Everything I see every day, I’m learning from what I see, so when I leave here I’ll be able to move on to the next level and be a coach myself.”
After either a year of being a manager or when dedication to the program is proven, the team will put a manager on scholarship. The new managers aren’t told about this specific perk early on as an effort to show individual motives of working with the team.
“We don’t tell the new managers this at first because we want to see, Are you here for the gear and the scholarships, or are you here because you want to be a Lady Tiger?” Lussier said.
When people see the managers on the sidelines at the games, they are not dressed as if they are heading to practice or games — they wear their finest attire. Caldwell and her staff are training the managers for the real world. While the managers are working, they are networking and want to be as professional as possible because of their desire to have careers in sports.
“We’re meeting with boosters, we’re meeting with possible job opportunities,” Lussier said. “You don’t want to be in khakis and a polo or sweats when you’re meeting someone for possible job opportunities.”
Manager and accounting junior Chrystal Cantrelle said LSU’s managers are the best-dressed managers in the Southeastern Conference.
Spending so much time with the team can be a struggle for the managers as students, and some have outside jobs. Time management skills are tested the most during road trips.
“When you’re on the road, you’re missing class just like the players are missing class, but you don’t have their tutors,” Lussier said. “So you have to learn how to do that and keep everything on track.”
Manager and sports commerce senior Jasmine Green said though the work is tiresome, she has no complaints and appreciates her role at the end of the day.
“We’re kind of like the backbone of the team,” Green said. “Everything flows through us. If we didn’t do it, who would?”
‘Coach Nikki is one of the best role models you can have on and o the court.’
