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Student managers play big role for Butler

By Matt Fortuna
Special to NCAA.org

HOUSTON — Ryan McLaughlin was a rising freshman on his way to a meeting with Butler assistant coach Terry Johnson in August 2007 when the school's 30-year-old new head coach stopped him in his tracks

"Hi, how you doing? I'm Brad Stevens. Nice to meet you," Stevens said to McLaughlin, setting off a 10-minute conversation with his future head manager.

Now as a senior, McLaughlin is soaking up the experience of back-to-back national title game appearances as much as anyone, as he has gone from e-mailing inquiries to Johnson as a high school senior to serving as Stevens' right-hand man four years later.

"My first impression when I saw him was just how personable he was and that he was willing to go out of his way to come and say hi to me before I was even a part of the program," McLaughlin said of Stevens. "Just walking into the office during August, I thought that was something really cool, just how they try to embrace that family atmosphere. And it all starts with the head coach."

The culture has extended down to the student managers, a four-man staff that has grown by one during the Stevens era, which saw the application process for joining the program change following Butler's run to the national title game last season.

All McLaughlin had to do was shoot Johnson an email. This past year, however, he had to sit in on interviews with Johnson after sifting through resumes. The two would question the eager students on their commitment to the program, on their desires to coach once out of school.

Freshman Mason Dettmer entered with a leg up, having attended Stevens' alma mater, Zionsville Community High School, and hearing the coach speak during his prep days. Dettmer was one of two new students to earn a spot as a manager this season, beating out four others.

The education major now films practice and games, makes sure the coolers are filled at all times and performs the glamorous task of doing the team's laundry, all without complaint.

"As a manager coming from just being a student, there's no way I thought I could be in Houston," Dettmer said, adding the thrill of meeting former president George H.W. Bush at the Final Four Salute Dinner on Thursday.

"Never in my wildest dreams would I see an ex-president," he said.

Some felt the same about Butler making consecutive Final Fours. Last season, McLaughlin — known as his fellow managers as McLovin' — became something of an inspiration to the Bulldogs. While shooting a poorly executed practice in October 2009, McLaughlin uttered to himself that his team was not good enough to make the Final Four, words the audiotape picked up.

Who can blame him? The business major elected to attend Butler in 2007 initially thinking he would be serving Todd Lickliter, the former Bulldogs coach who left for Iowa that spring.

Now when Stevens says at a press conference that his team would not have advanced this far without its attention to detail, McLaughlin knows exactly what he means.

It is evident in the moments before each game, when McLaughlin cannot bring Stevens' clipboard out to the court until the players and staff enter for the final time. And before each media timeout, when McLaughlin will have five towels neatly folded and ready for the five players coming off the court.

"Absolutely everything's gotta be right, to the final detail," McLaughlin said. "Some things that we do might be considered a little O.C.D. (Obsessive- Compulsive disorder). It has to be just right, and that might be a little bit of superstition too with us. But we make sure we have everything ready."

McLaughlin, in his first season as the head manager, said last year's trip to the title game has yet to sink in, let alone this year's.

Sophomore Eli Boyer, in his second year as manager, has a different perspective on the Bulldogs' run.

"It's really all I know," he said with a laugh.

An aspiring sports psychologist, Boyer said he is using his experience as a manager to observe and take mental notes for the future. He received quite the hoops education at Whitney M. Young Magnet High School in Chicago, the alma mater of Quentin Richardson and Marcus Jordan, who played there when Boyer attended.

Boyer's claim to fame back then was being "embarrassed" by Derrick Rose in a Thanksgiving tournament, but he said that does not even compare to the experiences he has had the past two years.

A perfect ending Monday night would give him the last laugh.

"Hopefully I'll be able to win one," Boyer said. "[Rose] didn't win one. He lost in the national championship."

Matt Fortuna is a senior in the John Curley Center for Sports Journalism at Penn State University