Men's Basketball | 3/31/2019 9:38:00 PM

 
NEW YORK
 
The work of getting Wichita State basketball on the road starts with a dry erase board and two bottles of Gatorade.
 
The dry erase board is in the coaches' locker room underneath Koch Arena and serves as the checklist for uniforms.
 
"The jerseys are No. 1," said Tanner Garver, a graduate manager who helps oversee the packing for road trips. "It's always double- and triple-check jerseys."
 
The Gatorade is red and orange and when mixed with water creates coach Gregg Marshall's in-game refreshment.  The bottles go in the game bag, along with other gear critical for the 40 minutes of play. 
 
"He mixes it himself, but we always bring the certain Gatorades for every single trip," Garver said. "It's half water, half Gatorade. We fill up two cups with half water and he does the rest."
 
The Shockers practiced Saturday afternoon before leaving for New York and the semifinals of the NIT. By the time practice ended, freshmen managers Britton Stutts and Bailey Burns had the gear packed and ready for Sunday's departure.
 
The managers are responsible for four canvas bags, one hard-shell container and a video screen that keep the Shockers dressed, organized and educated away from Koch Arena. They will travel with the bags on the bus, airplane, in the hotel and in the arena. There are other duties – roll call on the bus, helping with practice drills, a trip to the grocery store to buy cases of water and Gatorade. It all starts with packing.
 
In New York, Stutts, Burns and Nick Segura will spend most of the time shepherding the equipment.
 
"Our biggest fear would be to leave a jersey back home," Burns said. "We get to New York without a jersey, that would be, obviously, disaster."
 
The requirements of the job are passed down from one generation of managers to the next. Sophomore Connor Shank learned last season from senior Matthew Poland, a four-year veteran. Shank helped train this season's newcomers.
 
"Organization was one thing he really helped out with – it's a lot easier to have a list and go off the list instead of eye-balling and ending up missing something," Shank said. "How to pack the jerseys where you can two jerseys in one bag, how to make sure they're not wrinkled. The process that it takes from getting off the airplane to the bus and hanging them up in the hotel room."
 
Two sets of jerseys – black and yellow – are counted, rolled and placed in bags. The loops that organize practice gear – straps with socks, practice jerseys, shooting sleeves, etc. – are packed.  
 
"A day or two before we head out, the equipment managers bring all the jerseys into (the locker room) on a rack," Stutts said. "We roll it up and put it in two separate bags."
 
In the hotel, the jerseys are unpacked and hung in the closets to stop wrinkling. When the Shockers arrive at the arena for the shoot-around hours before the game, managers hang the jerseys in the lockers.
 
"We roll it up in a way so that they don't wrinkle," Burns said. "Look good, feel good, play good."
 
"We lay the jersey out with the name on the back up and we fold the pants on top of the jersey and the shooting shirt," Stutts said. "We usually just roll it so everything is inside of it."
 
The dry erase board hangs over the proceedings, red marker with each Shocker's number and column for both jerseys to check.
 
The bags contain most of the equipment needed for games, video study and practices on the road. Two for jerseys and practice gear, a bag with extra gear in case something is forgotten. Two extra jerseys – one sized for big men, one for guards – are in the bag in case blood ruins a jersey.
 
The game bag carries the small dry erase boards coaches use to diagram plays during games, a scout board with information about the opponent, markers. Empty Gatorade bottles, filled for games, for each Shocker are bagged for travel.
 
A plastic case protects the video projector and the Shockers travel with their own video screen for use in the hotel meeting rooms.
 
"Then it's just a matter of getting everything on the bus and making sure we have everything, double-checking," Burns said. "Then it's getting everything on the plane, not leaving anything on the bus."
 
Manager duties can be a starting spot for a career in basketball. Ryan Mahoney is an assistant men's coach at Southern Nazarene University. Chad Gibney is the women's basketball coach at Western Nebraska Community College. Ryan Hillard continues at WSU as special assistant to the head coach. 
 
Stutts is from Birmingham, Ala., where he grew up rooting for the Crimson Tide. Wichita State's series of games – including the 2011 NIT title game – against Alabama turned him into a Shocker fan. He wants to coach and decided learning from Marshall is how he wanted to start his career. A family friendship with Wichita State athletic director Darron Boatright – who worked on the basketball staff and in athletic development at Alabama – helped. 
 
"I admired this program and what Coach Marshall has done," Stutts said. "I want to learn under a coach who's done it for a long time and been very successful."
 
Burns, from Valley Center, played basketball in high school and followed the Shockers. He isn't sure if basketball is his future. For now, being around the game is enough.
 
"I've always loved Wichita State basketball," he said. 
 
Shank, from Wichita, planned to attend the University of Arizona after high school at Kapaun Mount Carmel. Marshall, a family friend, convinced him to stay home and work for the Shockers. Shank majors in sport management and law and aims for a career as a sports agent on the West Coast.
 
"The network and communication here, it's big time," Shank said. "I want to end up interning for (Creative Artists Agency) or a sports agency. It's always been a passion of mine, and I got that passion from (the HBO comedy series) Ballers, with the Rock (actor Dwayne Johnson). That gave me my inspiration, seeing how that process works."
 
Paul Suellentrop covers Wichita State Athletics and the American Athletic Conference for university Strategic Communications. Contact him at paul.suellentrop@wichita.edu.