What It's Like To Be a WHS Sports Manager

By: Grace Detrick and Valentino Fazio
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This week we asked the managers of two different sports teams here at WHS what their experience is like. We talked to seniors Olivia Destefani and Gabby Klementon, who manage the boys’ baseball team, and senior Riley Grenier who managed the girls’ basketball team this past winter.

If you’ve ever considered becoming a manager, now's the time because the three managers mentioned are graduating this year, leaving openings for the 2019-2020 sports seasons.

We wanted to find out what exactly a managing job entails so students can see if the job would be right for them. As for baseball, you have to do the book and write down everything that happens in the game like a strike or ball, etc.

“At first it was very hard learning how to do everything and we were clueless, but now we have the hang of it,” Klementon added. She records the stats manually on an iPad and keeps track of the pitch count during the game.

Grenier’s job however, is a little different. For the girls’ basketball manager, there is more participation involved and less stat recording.

“I have to participate and come to every practice as a ‘practice player’, run drills, and play defense on the girls,” Grenier explained.

Both of these jobs have easy aspects and challenging components as well. Destefani and Klementon both agreed writing down the players names before the game is the easiest and knowing what to classify every pitch or play is the hardest part. Destefani said, “It's all worth it because when we win or we make them cookies they get so hype.”

Grenier’s idea of the most difficult part of being a manager was “running a ton and repeating drills.” However, he really enjoyed the job because of the friendships he made with the players and getting to know people he didn't talk to before.

The best piece of advice Klementon and Destefani wanted to give to future managers was not to make Coach Bagdasarian mad and hang in there because it's hard at first, but gets easier and you'll get the hang of it.

Grenier had similar advice that it gets easier along the way as long as you show up on time, do what you're told  and are ready to run.

If you think you would want to take over either of these positions and are interested in managing either sport next season, speak to Coach Russell or Coach Bagdasarian.

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