Around the end of the first semester, while rolling up a burrito, sophomore Abby Laszewski responded to an impromptu media request. The interviewer, though came from an unlikely source.
“We’re here live with Abby Laszewski,” manager Jessica Reigh began to ask, with her phone serving as the recorder. “Abby, what do you think the biggest change from last year into to this year has been regarding your game?”
“You know, I just think that have a better managerial group and they’ve really helped me get better,” she said
“Especially Kenny,” senior manager Kenny Wolfe interrupted.
“Especially Kenny,” Laszewski added.
Wisconsin’s women’s basketball team has three seniors. But, behind the scenes, it has four senior managers. And like the players, the managers bore witness to the program’s recent coaching change. They’ve served as both vital support and entertainment over their last four years.
For college athletic program, coaching transitions tend to be difficult for everyone involved from the coaching staff to players, to even managers.
But such struggles, did not seem to be the case when Jonathan Tsipis was hired two years ago from George Washington. One of Tsipis’ first moves was to bring Ryan Phillips, a former manager at GW, with him to help with the transition. As it turns out, his hiring proved to be vital as he helped the now four senior managers that were left over from the previous regime and helped all of them get acclimated to Tsipis’ expectations right away.
“Our guy Ryan Phillips aka Ry Guy aka El Capitán made [the transition] really easy on us,” senior managers Sam Vander Plas and Kenny Wolfe said, while at the media podium, for likely was their only time this year.
With the managers understanding Tsipis expectations right away, they helped many of the players acclimate to the new identity of the program, which allowed fora kinship to develop with both parties going through the same growing pains.
“They’ve always been people that we can lean on and talk to,” senior guard Cayla McMorris said. "They are like the brothers and sisters that we never had or we wanted [to have].”
Although the life of a student manager might have the kinship with the players, what a manager does on an everyday basis is often times not glamorous. But it’s important important nonetheless.
“I think people don’t realize everything they do for us [players],” redshirt senior Kendall Shaw said. “They are always there for us and if I forgot something at my apartment they would literally run to my apartment and grab it and run back to the Kohl Center.”
For the majority of the managers they spend almost every day at the Kohl Center helping in any facet that the program needs them in. They live and breathe Wisconsin women’s basketball.
Long days can be comprised of mundane tasks at times. But in other moments, their shenanigans are on full display.
A Twitter page, @WBBManagers, shows not only their work for the program, but displays their intramural basketball performances and a whole lot more.
“We had a lot of people prompting us to start a Twitter page and we never did and this year we pulled the trigger and hit the ground running with that,” senior manager Emily Leyden said.
The only person they follow is their real life boss, head coach Jonathan Tsipis, which according to Tsipis, was to mimic ESPN personality Jay Bilas who only has one twitter follower.
“I think Jay Bilas does a lot of great things for college sports the one thing I have a little bit of an irritation about is that he followed no one on twitter for a very long time,” Tsipis said. “I think someone who is a lawyer that has to consider all sources he chooses not get his information from any sources on twitter and now that the managers only follow me they get all their information from whatever I post so I find it an honor that they do it but also funny at the same extent.”
In terms of players making appearances on the coveted Twitter page, there has only been one: Laszewski.
“I think the Twitter page brings a lightness to the program and it allows the managers to get their voices out because they are such an important part of the team,” Laszewski said. “I have been the only player to make an appearance on the page so I feel very honored.”
One of the most prominent things that be taken away from these four senior managers is the impact that they have had during or after practices. They help the players by mimicking opposing defenses or after practice just helping anyone get more shots up to prepare for games.
“I think Sam and Kenny are excited to leave just ‘cause they get hit in the face every day at practice,” Shaw said. “But I think they will be extremely missed by this team.”
Their Twitter antics will be etched in Wisconsin women’s basketball history with intramural box scores, selfies in front of the Lincoln Memorial and interviews with players and all.
