Hours before the football players go to the locker room to get dressed for a game, the equipment managers set everything up to make sure it is all ready to go. They set out socks, pants, jerseys, and pads. The managers deal with everything down to the minute details like putting decals on helmets.
Equipment managers are an integral part of a team, but while coaches and players are usually in the spotlight, the managers work behind the scenes. It takes a lot to make a football program succeed. According to the website of Mercer University Athletics, Mercer’s football team has a support staff of 34 people and the equipment managers only make up a fraction of that total.
Samuel Scobie, Mercer’s Director of Football Equipment, has been at Mercer for three months and works with the team, the coaches, and the other managers to make sure the practice and game operations runs as smoothly as possible. Scobie is responsible for anything to do with equipment – from ordering, laundering and making sure players get all the gear they need. He also assists in setting up and breaking down practices, helps coaches during practice, and deals with all the laundry from the team. He also serves as a liaison for visiting equipment staffs when they come to Five Star Stadium.
“Working out a schedule to sort of keep it all balanced [is the hardest part],” Scobie said. “It’s really easy to be here for 18 hours a day, but that’s how you end up getting burnt out.”
Scobie is also in charge of hiring student managers who assist the team as well. This is how graduate assistant Austin Aldridge got his start with Mercer’s football team during his first year at Mercer. Since Aldridge has been working for the team for over four years now, he has seen the success that having team managers brings.
“You can get by with not having managers, but it really allows for more success on the field,” Aldridge said. “You have managers and students that want to be here to help contribute and run things behind the scenes so that coaches don’t have to double down on what they already have to do.”
Aldridge also mentioned that the hardest part about the job is time management and working out a schedule. Managing the team is a huge time commitment, but Aldridge said that being a part of the unique environment makes it all worth it.
“[Mercer] had a football program ages ago, but we just came back in 2013, it’s all new,” Aldridge said. “We’re still building from being back in our 11th season, but getting to be a part of that building process is a really cool thing. Not everyone gets to experience going from nothing to slowly seeing your team get more successful.”
Becoming a manager for a team often tends to be a position that one would fall into, not a position that is usually sought out. However, Scobie has known since he was 14 years old that he wanted to be an equipment manager. Throughout his time in high school he was able to visit with various equipment staffs and realized it was something he could see himself doing. He liked the fact that being a manager would allow him to be involved with a sport without having to play a sport.
Being the Director of Equipment has also allowed him to make deeper connections with the coaches and players that he gets to interact with every day. He says making those relationships is one of the most rewarding parts of the job.
“We’ll just sit down and chat about sports or life,” Scobie said. “It’s kind of nice to hear about what’s going on with them, and also helping them succeed on the field.”
The connections made along the way was a huge part of why Aldridge decided to stay at Mercer and get his masters while working with the football team. After talking with the Director of Football Operations, Bennett Houston, he knew this was right where he wanted to be.
“I love Mercer. I love Mercer football. And I love being around sports,” Aldridge said. “I had the opportunity to stay and keep doing what I’ve loved doing. It was a pretty easy decision when I sat down and talked with Bennett and he was just as excited for me to want to stay as I was excited for them to want me to stay.”
Aldridge and Scobie hold unique positions that not many fans notice during the hustle and bustle of game day. However, the work they do behind the scenes is often what keeps the program successful off the field in order for the team to be successful on the field.
