My travel expenses as a college basketball manager

At my college, St. Bonaventure University, I am a student manager for our women’s basketball team. Some of the duties of the job include things like laundry, helping rebound at practice, filming or recording stats for games and doing anything else the coaches might need.

College basketball teams play around 15 games on the road each season, give or take a few games. While I do not travel to every away game, I am on the road for a few each season. A big part of our job as managers is taking our work on the road for away games. Along with that, they also allow me to see other team’s arenas which is something I really enjoy.

Our road duties begin the night before when we get all of the equipment packed and ready to go.

The next day after practice we load everything on to the bus and make sure all equipment is accounted for.

Most of our road games are driving distances away so we take a bus but there have been some games where we take a plane. For the games that we do fly to, we drive to the airport where our luggage is taking care of for us.

When our bus arrives at the hotel, we are in charge of unloading all of the equipment and taking it our room where it is stored. Often times, we watch film right after we arrive so one manager will take the film stuff down to our conference room and set it up.

After film, we eater dinner The food on the road is always good and one of the perks of the job. After dinner, everyone usually just hangs out and not much happens.

The next morning, after we wake up and get ready, we usually will go down to the lobby and have an area where we have food out for the players to have before shootaround. We also bring down the equipment we will need for it. After we eat and load the bus we head to the arena.

During shootaround, we are usually helping the coaches pass and rebound in drills as well as one of us working the clock/scoreboard.

Once shootaround is completed we head back to the hotel where we sometimes watch film again so we will have the equipment set up. After we watch film we eat our pregame meal, either breakfast or lunch and get ready for the game.

Once we are dressed for the game, we start to load the bus up with all of the equipment that we brought in. We then drive to the game and get things all set up on the bench, in the locker-room and up in the film booth.

Once the game begins we perform our usual game-day tasks. On the bench, one person does stats, one person is in charge of the stool for the coach during timeouts and the other is in charge of picking up the food on the bus.

When the game is over we pack up our equipment and head home. Once we get back we unpack the bus and make sure everything is put away and then we are done.

One thing I really enjoy about road trips is being able to see different cities and arenas. I have been able to travel to schools like St. Louis, VCU, Rhode Island and Penn State, to name a few.

Travel is a big part of my job as a college basketball manager, but it is also one of my favorite parts. I am so grateful for the opportunity to be able to go on the road and help the team at places other than on campus.