Hi, my name is Daniel Whitener and today we will begin the journey of what life is like being a college basketball student manager and why I believe it is one of the most important jobs to having a winning and successful basketball team.
When I first arrived at Appalachian State University 3 years ago, I didn't know exactly what I wanted to do after I got my degree here. All I knew is I wanted to be involved with sports. Sports are a passion of mine and has always been one since I was little. I grew up playing baseball, basketball, and golf with baseball and basketball being the two sports I primarily focused on. So when I first arrived at App, I was thinking about either playing club baseball or trying to become a basketball manager for the men's basketball team here at App. After several weeks of being up here and getting used to living on my own and my class schedule, I finally decided on becoming a manager for the basketball team was going to be in my best interest.
So how did I become a manager? Well one day, walking back to my apartment, which happened to be right near the Holmes Convocation Center, where the men's and women basketball team play, I ran into Coach Jason Allison. At the time Coach Allison was the Associate Head Coach for the App State Men's Basketball team. I had actually known who Coach Allison was at the time through a mutual friend from a previous job. When I ran into Coach Allison, I mentioned to him that I was interested in becoming a manager for the basketball team. He told me to come by one day later that week to introduce me to other coaches and managers and so I could observe a practice as well. On that first day when I showed up all I was expecting to do was sit on the side and observe what the other managers do, so I would know what to do the next time I came. Well in what I believe was either the second or the third drill the team was doing Coach Allison hollered over at me and told me to jump in and start helping the other managers rebound, and that is basically the story of how I became a manager here at App State.
From here on out I am going to introduce you to the daily/weekly schedule I have before the season begins. Later I plan on describing what a typical game day schedule is like. As well what my schedule looks like when traveling for road games as well. I want to thank you for taking the time to reading my blog and I look forward to writing my next post.
Above is a picture of me and graduated Center Hunter Seacat. This is a picture of me in one of my first couple weeks being a manager before I earned any App State Basketball gear.
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