Student managers facilitate practice Behind the scenes with Irish football team student managers

Publication: The Observer, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame IN.

Students involved with athletics are not typically accustomed to auditioning for roles, but that's precisely what 24 Notre Dame and Saint Mary's undergraduates had to do to earn their coveted spots as the hard-working student managers of the Irish football team.

Caroline Genco | The Observer"The tryout process, for me, consisted of coming to practice almost every single day," Saint Mary's sophomore Courtney Thompson said. "At practice I basically just helped the older managers in any way possible which included shagging balls and setting up the fields. "I remember being so excited to be a part of the football program and just to be trying out as a manager in general. It was all I would talk about the entire year."

Tryouts can last throughout the whole season; some students choose to begin working football practices at the beginning of the school year, while others join the pool at the beginning of second semester practices. From the field of largely first-year students trying out, the head and assistant football equipment managers select a group of 14 students to continue to their sophomore year in the program as full-time managers, according to junior Anthony Tucker.

"Basically throughout the year you're kind of being evaluated by the full-time managers and the full-time equipment managers -- Ryan Grooms and Adam Meyers -- and right before the spring game they'll narrow the group of freshmen or first-year students to 14," he said. "If you're selected as one of those 14, you officially become a full-time student manager and then you work that full next season." Tucker said seven of the 14 sophomore managers continue to their junior year in the program. After that, three...