To help players and coaches, the basketball team managers assist during games and practices by getting the necessary equipment for the team.
According to basketball head coach Oketah Sackitey, team managers play a vital role for the basketball program at Souderton.
“It’s really nice to have someone keeping stats in the scorebook and making sure that we know how many timeouts we have left, and who’s scoring what points, and just to be organized in that way,” Sackitey said.
According to Sackitey, having people keep scorebooks and cooperate with officials makes his job easier.
“Every away game when they keep the scorebook; that’s really a big deal having someone to keep the scorebook at the score table sitting there with the officials, the scores, table officials and the clock operators,” Sakitey said. “They’re a part of it [and] that’s extremely helpful,”
Freshman basketball player Jack Newberry thinks the team managers have an extremely positive impact on the team.
“Nothing negative comes out of the role of a team manager, and everyone’s friends with Terrell, our team manager. He gets everyone excited to play and helps us prepare for the next game,” Newberry said.
According to varsity basketball manager Sophia Strozeski, team managers play a vital role in the success of a team.
“It takes a lot of stress off the coach for unnecessary things. We did the score, but if we didn’t have a manager, you’d have one of the JV people do it, but then that’s also the stress of recruiting someone to do it,” Strozeski said.
Sackitey said that the managers take care of important tasks on game day.
“Film and the scorebook are the two main things. They assist with running game day decisions and operations,” Sackitey said.
Sackitey believes that film plays a vital role in helping the team better understand their mistakes.
“You need to have every game filmed so you can study, know what you did and get better,” Sackity said. “A big part of us getting better relies on them filming and keeping stats; those are two significant things.”
For Strozeski the most stressful part of the job is tracking the stats of players.
“You have to pay attention and understand what’s going on to get the scorebook,” Strozeski said. “You can have one or two mess-ups and it’s fine because there’s another person there also keeping stats for the other team.”
Despite the stress, according to Strozeski, the most exciting part of being a team manager is the bus ride.
“The way home is the best part especially when they win the game, which is most of the time.Usually they’d be blaring music. I love all the excitement from all of the players,” Strozeski said.