Four Boys For The Boys: These seniors are taking the lacrosse field for the first time as boys lacrosse managers

Right as the boys lacrosse team finished drills and jogged to the far end of the field to advance to the conditioning portion of the tryouts, the four new managers went running to clear the goal. They had to prove their worth.

Because a good lacrosse manager, according to team operations manager Schurr, is someone who is able to take charge of the gray area of a sport that doesn’t fall upon the players or the parents.

“[The gray area] is the music for the pregame, setting up cones, even being able to repair some of the gear,” Schurr said. “Let’s say a screw comes loose on someone’s stick, having the ability to fix that.”

So senior managers Emerson Bihuniak, Ethan Boren, Eddie Leopold and Will Alexander gather loose balls, sticks and cones during tryouts. In past years, lacrosse managers didn’t have many responsibilities or the job didn’t exist at all. But this year, the seniors are buckling down to prove their helpfulness while continuing to hang out with their friends at practice.

Senior and offensive midfielder Cole Jackson — who has been on the team for four years — has been pitching the manager job description to his non-lacrosse friends since September. Having seen managers in the past, he knew it would make a fun job and allow him to see them more often.

“I was paying attention to who was actually listening to what I was saying,” Jackson said. “Whoever cared the most was who I was going to ask.”

After seeing how receptive they were to his conversations, it seemed clear to him that some of his closest friends, Bihuniak, Leopold, Boren and Alexander were most interested. 

Even with little to no prior experience with lacrosse, the four signed up as lacrosse managers — a position that was held by only one student last year. 

“We don’t have a very big senior class for lacrosse, so having four more senior managers who are my friends makes it a lot more fun for me,” Jackson said. 

The managers are anticipating team dinners and traveling with the team to games as far as St. Louis. Plus, they get to watch Jackson play. Since the seventh grade, the four managers have kept within their tight-knit circle of 11 friends, with four of them being on the lacrosse team. However, throughout high school, it was rare that more than four of the boys at a time would call each other teammates or join the same club. 

“I don’t think any of us have all been together [in an activity], and this is like 90% of our guy friend group,” Boren said. “When I played basketball, no one else did. So it will be fun to all be out there together, especially senior year.” 

Each of the four managers plays a different sport, individually experiencing the sense of being on a team. Nearing the end of their senior year, they saw managing the team as an opportunity to test the spirit and hype of their own friend group.

“To be honest when we started, I didn’t think that we would have to do more than play music,” Bihuniak said. “But then [the coaches] gave us a huge piece of paper with tasks on it.” 

In past years, the players’ parents have been the ones ensuring that players are prepared for the game by getting balls ready, leaving only the hype man position of the team to the managers. This year, the program plans to allocate a stronger role to the managers, giving the parents a break, according to Schnurr. 

During tryouts, the boys had two main tasks: setting and removing goals and cones and “shagging” balls — collecting old ones from the field. They’re also in the process of learning about the sport itself, like how to call a face-off — a method used to begin or restart a play by gaining full possession of the ball.

“We don’t know how to [call a face-off] yet,” Leopold said. “But we are learning more about how the game works as we go so we can help in practice.” 

When real practices begin, they will be expected to help warm up the goalie by shooting with him while the rest of the team runs passing drills, and pay closer attention to when cones and equipment need to come on and off. 

According to Jackson and the managers, a big part of their role is to raise excitement through sideline rowdiness and a carefully-crafted Spotify playlist featuring songs like Drip Too Hard and DNA to energize players before game time.

“When they hear our playlist, we want them to feel anger and rage and be ready to play the other team,” Bihuniak said. 

Since they’re on the sidelines most of the time, the boys have less time to chat with friends who are playing, like Jackson, than they originally expected. But they’ve still found ways to have fun like cheering on their friends as they run by.

“A manager is the first guy to start the victory chant when they score a goal or be the first one to give a high five when they come off the field,” Schnurr said. “And that’s what we need from these boys.”