Managers Critical To Duke Basketball Success

DURHAM - An apt metaphor for the cadre of managers of the Duke men's basketball program is a battalion of military trainees. They are on the periphery of the highlights. They stand at attention on the edges of the bench, or behind it. Their charges—those other young men in uniform—crash onto the cushioned seats, exhausted, and the managers automatically dole out fresh towels and powder-mixed Gatorade. During warmups, they gather under the basket, retrieving shots made and missed, and deliver perfect chest passes to the players, whose eyes fix on the concentric space within the rim. They enjoy the game, of course, but that is secondary to their responsibilities. It would be odd to see a group of managers in the gyrating student section of Cameron Indoor Stadium, opposite their regular bench outpost: black polo shirts with the Iron D logo tucked into slacks, their hair cut clean--army crews for men, plain ponytails for women. Faces fixed in intense concentration. The overarching responsibility of the job, as more than one manager pointed out to me, is to make sure that the operation goes smoothly, or more accurately, nothing goes wrong. In the towering, dynamic enterprise of Duke Basketball, the closest thing to professional sports on campus, mistakes simply matter more.

Managing for Duke is a year-round endeavor. The most intense period is during the season (October to March or April, depending on the team's success) when the duties can eat up 30 to 40 hours per week, a considerable weight to place on top of one's academic and social life. During the summers, managers must work at basketball camps; in the offseason, their presence is required for the players' informal shoot-arounds and pickup games. For all the time and effort, the job is unpaid.

In the early stages of the fall semester, the team advertises the position inconspicuously in the Chronicle student newspaper and posts a few flyers on campus bulletin boards. Despite the hours, the expectation of menial work and the lack of compensation, the position is popular with students: the Durham Herald-Sun reported that in 2009, 215 freshman and sophomores (or four percent of the eligible student population) competed for just four spots. The high level of interest is understandable; a common adage among undergraduates is that some people choose Duke over other top schools “because of the basketball team.” Yet from among all of the applicants, there is room for only a select few. As Director of Basketball Operations Chris Spatola told the Herald-Sun, the staff vets the candidates by identifying the “telltale signs [that] this is really for them.”

What are the telltale signs, what kind of person fits the mold? I spoke with four managers, one current and three former, whose combined “careers” span virtually Coach K's entire tenure at Duke. I was on a mission to divine the mentality of someone who willingly trades a traditional college experience to rise at seven a.m. on a Monday and trek to Cameron to mix 10 gallons of Gatorade. What is the intrinsic value of this job, other than proximity to one of the nation's best basketball programs and bags full of free Nike gear? What to me sounds like madness to them comes naturally. As I learned, it's a singular experience that prepares managers for the rest of their lives.

THE PRESENT: JAMIE STARK, CLASS OF 2014

For Jamie Stark, a Duke sophomore and one of the team's ten current managers, Tuesday December 6th was busy. It was a 'pre-game day'. The Blue Devils were preparing to host visiting Colorado State, their first game since losing by twenty-two points at Ohio State in the ACC-Big Ten Challenge. In post-game interviews, Coach K had conceded that the Buckeyes--then ranked second in the country to Duke's fourth—had been the fresher squad. Duke was still recovering from a harrowing schedule of seven games in twelve days and a trip back from Hawaii after winning their fifth Maui Invitational championship. Well-rested by the 6th, a lack of freshness was no longer a valid excuse. The normal barrage of preparations was underway.

Stark's day started around 8 a.m. He mentioned that Tuesday and Thursday practices had “initially been scheduled to start at 7:30, but basketball players aren't awake at 7:30 in the morning.” So the timetable moved up slightly to accommodate them. The managers, of course, would have been there regardless of the hour.

The morning's regimen included a film session on Colorado State's offensive and defensive schemata followed brief team practice.

“For the managers, that involves setting up the film, setting up the meeting room where they meet, setting up practice and then doing our chores during practice, taking care of everything, and then cleaning up after that,” Stark said. “And that's after last night, when we had to set up autographing balls because there was an autographing session.”

The first wave of duties complete, Stark's normal student schedule began.

“I had a test this morning at 10:05, another class at 1:15, grabbed some lunch, then I had to meet with a professor, then I had this [sportswriting] class,” he said. “Tonight, we have another practice...individual work, where they work on their individual skills . . . to become better basketball players, and that's tonight at 7:15.”

Stark would have to be there early, though. “We gotta be there at 6:30, set everything up, be there for practice, clean up, then there's a meeting after that, there's always a meeting before game day, then there's a meal, there's Cookout, so that'll be done around 9:30 or 10 o'clock.”

Managers deliver the food from Cookout, a fast-food joint native to North Carolina and known for its double drive-thru windows. Stark knew the team's order by heart.

“We get shakes, cheeseburgers, chicken sandwiches, cheesy chicken, spicy chicken, hamburgers, nuggets, corn dogs, fries, onion rings,” Stark recounted. “We get lots of shakes, there's like three cartons of shakes.”

The manager's demanding schedule—food runs included—was clarified in the early stages of the interview process, when the staff outlines the details of the job and its hefty time commitment. After earning an offer, Stark deliberated seriously on whether to accept, as a freshman, an opportunity that would in large part define his experience as an undergraduate.

Complicating things further is the fact that Stark has chosen one of the more demanding academic paths: pre-medicine. That Tuesday test at 10:05 was in Organic Chemistry, a compulsory course bemoaned by legions of science students. But most of those students don't have 35 hours of labor per week on top of their normal studying.

“For the past few days I've had this orgo test coming up, and I knew I had to do really well on it,” Stark said. “But there's so much going on lately for basketball, and so much practice, that it was just making life really difficult.”

“That test did not go well, and I'm like 'oh my God, what am I doing with my life?'” he added. “I'm spending all my time being a manager . . . and I'm having a tough time getting good grades.”

Stark noted that on top of classwork, managing limits his ability to participate in the variety of extracurricular activities at Duke, like the popular international service summer program DukeEngage and the scientific research experience he will need to prepare for medical school.

“I am simply unable to do [research] during the year,” he said. “In addition to school, there's literally no time for me to get involved with something like that.”

Yet, despite the constriction of his social life and the wholesale trade-off of the typical extracurricular menu of a Duke undergraduate, Stark says he has no regrets about being a manager. As an example of an opportunity that makes it worthwhile, he cites the unique experience of traveling to China and Dubai with the team for this past summer's Duke Friendship Games. He has also developed close friendships with the staff and his fellow managers, saying that “the sense of family” in the program is one of the best parts.

The most valuable aspect of managing, though, was elucidated by a trusted high school teacher who advised the freshman Stark as he weighed the job offer.

“He said, 'you will probably never have a better professor at Duke than Coach K.',” Stark remembered. “When he said that, I said 'I'll do it, I'll give it a shot'. And I haven't really looked back since.”

THE ORIGINAL: GEORGE DORFMAN, CLASS OF 1985, A.M. CLASS OF 2001

The men's basketball program occupies the top two floors of the Schwartz-Butters Athletic Center, a glass and brick building adjacent to Cameron Indoor Stadium. To access the top floor, the location of Coach K's office with the American flag in the window, you must press your thumb to a biometric scanner in the elevator. It checks your identity against the basketball inner circle: accept or reject. Suffice it to say that Coach K doesn't have many open slots on his calendar for unannounced visitors.

In 1983, George Dorfman was a sophomore history major at Duke and had decided to pursue a career as a basketball coach. So he went to the basketball office, then a small enclave on the ground floor of Cameron (Schwartz-Butters wasn't built until the late nineties) and asked to meet with Coach K. The secretary promptly set up an appointment.

“That's probably not something that would happen now,” Dorfman said with a laugh. “You'd probably have to go through a few more layers of security.”

Dorfman hadn't intended to become a manager initially. During the meeting, however, Coach K suggested the position as the best litmus test for coaching. Dorfman took his advice and joined the program for his junior and senior years.

The work was in many ways similar to that of 21st century managers, though without conveniences like Duke's sprawling modern video recording technology.

“You're there before the players, you're there after they go,” Dorfman. “You still do some of the grunt work, like dealing with sweaty uniforms and cleaning up the floor...whatever the small tasks are that makes it a smooth-running operation.”

Dorfman was privy to nascent, pre-empire Duke, when it was still a small Durham republic. There was no practice facility like the Krzyzewski Center; the team had to share Cameron with other programs. Compared with Duke's media ubiquity in this decade, when the Blue Devils are on television more than most pro teams, almost no games were broadcast in the eighties.

The experience of traveling with the team was significantly less glamorous as well. These days, Duke charters a plane for most away games, lovingly dubbed “Duke Airlines” by former guard Nolan Smith. In the mid-eighties, the team flew on commercial jets like “the common people.” Further, only two managers accompanied the team on trips; now, the entire managing staff save the freshman is required to travel.

“How everyone travels now, that's how we traveled then,” Dorfman said.

But what was lacking in glamour was compensated by quality basketball. Many experts say that the eighties was the golden age of the ACC. As a junior manager, Dorfman witnessed Duke upset North Carolina team in the ACC tournament semifinals--a Tar Heel team that starred Michael Jordan, Sam Perkins and Kenny Smith, and had beaten the Blue Devils twice in the regular season. Every conference team had at least one pro prospect, Dorfman said, and to beat them required intense preparation.

The proximity to Duke during the early years of K was certainly a boon for Dorfman in pursuit of his initial career as a coach. Originally for upstate New York, he took a job at nearby Cornell out of college and was as an assistant coach for eight years. In 1995, he returned to Durham with his family and joined the Alumni Affairs office, where he is now Assistant Vice President. He often travels to basketball games for events with alumni, representing the University in a similarly managerial way.

As an administrator, Dorfman is constantly engaged with the Duke's increasing global reputation, which he attributes largely to the success of the basketball program. He told a story of a recent work trip to Oktoberfest in Munich. Wading through the tents of tables, steins and tourists, he was approached by several Germans, who pointed at the Iron D on his baseball cap and exclaimed, 'oh, Blue Devils!'

“It wasn't because we have a campus in China, it wasn't because we have a great medical center that they knew [the logo],” he said. “It was because of basketball.”

Even with the immense growth of Duke Basketball and the space of decades since his time as a manager, Dorfman still knows his place as part of the program.

“As a manager, you were as much a part of what the organization did as an assistant coach or a trainer,” Dorfman said. “[Coach K] still doesn't really treat you any differently as a former manager as if you are Jason Williams.”

“Well, maybe a little bit differently. But you're still a part of the family.”

THE ASSET: KENNY KING, CLASS OF 2000, FUQUA CLASS OF 2008

Kenny King is at home in the pressure cooker. He was a four-year manager from 1996 to 2000 and earned a degree in economics. Having succeeded in arguably the most intense job available to an undergraduate, King transitioned into a grueling position as an analyst at financial giant Morgan Stanley.

“Working with the basketball program, working with Coach, prepared me for anything,” King said. “In terms of finance, I felt that the experiences were very similar. No two days were the same...on the trading floor, information was constantly moving the market and you had to be analyzing that information and using it.”

“I compare that to practice—no two practices are the same...and that prepared me for any scenario.”

King described extolled the “seamless transition” between the two fiercely team-oriented cultures of Duke and Morgan Stanley as crucial to his success in the fixed-income division in the firm's New York and London offices.

To start a career like King did is a goal for many Duke students; the financial industry continues to attract a large proportion of the school's graduates. After just two years away from Duke, however, King got the less common opportunity to come on as a permanent member of the basketball staff.

When King got a call from Coach K about becoming the team's Director of Academics, King, who was then working in London, worried whether he had sufficient experience in education to do the job well.

“I remember him saying 'You were able to successfully navigate your four years while you were working with the team and you did it at a high level and as an econ major,” King said. “He said, 'I want you to come back and share that with the guys'.”

“And I said, 'Coach, count me in.' It's a great example of the belief and trust he puts in his program and everyone that works for him, right down to the student managers.”

King's return to Duke exemplifies the close-knit family atmosphere Coach K has created as figurehead. All of his assistant coaches are former players—most of them team-leading point guards. Chris Spatola, the current Director of Basketball Operations is K's son-in-law and a fellow graduate of West Point.

“[Coach K] constantly talks about passing down culture,” King said. “I feel like asked me to take this role to do that just as much as helping our players.”

King has thrived in leading the team's academic support efforts for the past eight years. The job is “extremely dynamic,” but his core responsibilities are helping the players with time management, selecting courses and majors, and planning for “life after basketball,” a phase that he hopes won't start until they're 35 or 40, by helping them clarify their interests and coordinating internships and professional mentors.

“I talk to our current players and tell them that I see their time with me as another course,” King said. “But it's a course that I want them to graduate from by the time they're sophomores.”

People often ask King whether convincing the players of the importance of education is a challenge--a natural question, since academic issues are a constant news item in big time college athletics. King says Duke bucks the negative trend due to the culture inculcated by Coach K and the shared values of the school and athletic program.

“Coach makes my job pretty simple,” King said. “The types of players he brings in have bought in already to everything Duke stands for.”

“I'm not twisting their arm and I don't need to coach them on the importance of going to class or the importance of a degree--they bought in, they want that.”

King's diligence has paid off. Since taking the helm of academic advising, one hundred percent of players who have stayed four years have graduated. It's a point of pride for King; he decorates his office with framed photographs of him with each group of seniors at graduation.

With two years in finance, eight years as the team's head of academics and a Fuqua MBA to his name, King has a lot of professional options. Long term, he is interested in a senior role in athletics administration, but for now, he's happy where he is.

“I've learned to love this profession,” he said. “I'd stay here as long as I could.”

THE NEXT STEP: SARAH HELFER, CLASS OF 2011

Sarah Helfer's official career has just commenced, but it feels like she has just completed one. The Raleigh native graduated six months ago, having managed for four years and risen to the position of co-head manager. Helfer is still at Duke for now, working for the school's NCAA compliance office from a small desk off a winding Cameron hallway.

Her first career started like Jamie Stark's. The interviews with the phalanx of the basketball operation, the 40 hour weeks and Gatorade coolers, the scheduling of classes around the team's spring travel trends. The menial tasks, the hours of video editing, the toweling of sweat.

As she moved up the ranks, she realized that the organizational capabilities that had helped earn her the job had grown into something more meaningful. She was not just a manager of the team; she was responsible the younger managers as well. In other words, she was a leader.

“With every year, you gain more and more responsibility,” Helfer says. “The constant learning that you do becomes constant teaching, and it's a completely different role.”

“I've always been personally a very organized person. Managing made me use those traits in organizing others, which is a whole different ball game.”

As a junior, Helfer was on the bench in Indianapolis' Lucas Oil Stadium as Duke beat Butler for the 2010 national championship. NCAA regulations limited the number of available bench seats for managers. During warmups, she was the only manager on the court with the team.

“You feel like you're on this stage,” she said. “It's like this theater, a basketball theater, in front of 100,000 people.”

Helfer was co-head manager for her senior year, sharing leadership duties with Pat Thompson. Thompson was also a four year manager, and now is the graduate assistant for the team, one of the seeming dozens of dark suits that marches onto the court before each game.

Helfer and Thompson were put in the spotlight when they were featured in a video as part of an advertising campaign for UPS celebrating “the logistics experts of college basketball.” To be the center of attention after four years of working behind the scenes was strange and gratifying.

“As managers, we were always an appreciated part of the program, but obviously it wasn't our place to be in the limelight,” Helfer wrote in an e-mail. “So being the subject of the video and having everything revolve around us was an uncomfortable experience at first, but also became fun,”

The video highlights the nitty-gritty nature of the job, communicating how process-oriented and “logistical” managing is. Yet it was clear that managers become family. In looking out for the team, they also look out for each other. As Thompson speaks of the lifelong friendship he wants to have with Helfer, she fights to hold back tears. They are clearly genuine: Helfer and Thompson had worked too many hours together to be anything but honest.

Having gotten the opportunity to stay on in Durham, Helfer is now seeing Duke Athletics from a different angle as a compliance staffer.

“I got the managers side of things, now I'm getting the organizational, legislative side of things,” she said.

In the future, Helfer is considering law school or working at a technology startup—two careers that engender attention to detail and flexibility like managing does. For now, she is happy to stay close to the program she loves—and like many athletics employees, wear Duke clothes to work every day.

“It was such a once in a lifetime thing, and something I know I'll remember forever.”

THE DUKE FAMILY

I want to slightly revise my initial metaphor of the managers as an elite group of soldiers. Even if they have military discipline (“ten minutes early is on time, on time is late,” Helfer said). Even if their hair and clothes are just so and their posture is exact and exacting and they spend hundreds of hours engaged in repetitive tasks. In four conversations, four people communicated the same thing: managing is the best choice they made at Duke, something they would never rescind or regret. They were genuine, candid and passionate; unsurprisingly, these are traits espoused by Coach K.

In pop culture, the military is often projected as a brotherhood, an intense broil of humanity that blurs the line between work and life. Perhaps Duke Basketball is something similar—a group of individuals tied together through experience, oriented toward a goal. A family. And the managers are elemental.

Managers Critical To Duke Basketball Success

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