Two years ago, Andrew McCall became a manager for the Michigan State men’s basketball team.
In his first week of practice, the team was running a shooting drill. Managers, including Andrew, threw bounce passes for players to catch and shoot. Coach Tom Izzo stood at the top of the key, watching shots fall through the net.
That was until Andrew’s pass missed its intended target, reserve guard Davis Smith, and instead took one bounce and hit the unsuspecting Izzo - square in the groin. Izzo doubled over, Andrew stood with his hands up in shock.
“I thought I was going to get thrown out of practice,” Andrew said. “I was going to apologize, but the senior manager was like, ‘He’s been hit in the groin plenty of times through 20 years, don’t apologize.’”
Izzo forgave, but did not forget.
“Coach really gave me s–t about it the next day,” Andrew said. “He’s a character and I love coach. He’s really one of a kind.”
Late one night earlier this year, Andrew was logging practice film in the Breslin Center basketball offices.
“I have my Airpods in, it's maybe 9:30 at night, the parking lot is empty, I thought everyone was gone,” said Andrew. “I’m just logging at the computer, and I feel a hand on my shoulder, and I jumped back.”
It was Izzo.
“C’mon McCall,” he recalled Izzo saying. “Don’t you know you and I are the only ones here this late?”
Izzo knew Andrew’s work ethic well, because he had seen it before. His brother, Matt, was a manager for MSU from 2013-17. Their sister, Bonnie, was a student assistant for the team from 2018-22. And their father, Tom, was a manager from 1983-87, during which he got to know Izzo as an assistant under Coach Jud Heathcote.
Being a college basketball manager is an underappreciated and, at Michigan State, unpaid job. And the work is not glamorous.
On a typical weekday game day, Andrew begins like most MSU students, going to classes at 8 or 10 a.m. After that, he arrives at the Breslin Center about five hours before tip-off to prepare the video board, jerseys, waters, towels and anything else the team needs for shootaround. When that’s done, the managers move into preparations for the game, cleaning up practice gear, setting up pads and warm-up gear for the players.
“You gotta get clipboards for coach, because you know he’ll break one,” Andrew joked.
That’s followed by the team meal, then the managers go to the floor to rebound for about 90 minutes. Come tip-off, there are many different jobs for managers. The most visible of course being placing stools and distributing water during timeouts.
But one of their most important jobs - video logging - is unseen.
A team of managers helps capture each game’s film and send clips to the bench to help coaches make adjustments. The video work doesn’t just happen during the games, as managers also watch, cut, and log film from MSU’s upcoming opponents.
“You go through and get about 5 to 6 games to get every team logged. My boss used to tell us that sometimes they'd be there until like 2:30 in the morning after Selection Sunday, just logging,” Andrew said. “[The coaches] see stuff that we don’t, so you just want to try to help them put the team forward in any way you can.”
It's a demanding job for anyone, let alone an 18-year-old with a full course load.
“As a freshman, learning to be on your own, but also manage school, plus 30 hours of work a week,” Matt said. “It’s like drinking from a firehose.”
But that feeling subsided as he gained more experience.
“It was, ‘Holy hell, I'm on a new planet,’ to, ‘I help run the planet,’” Matt said.
Experience brings increased responsibilities, but also elevated perks. First-year managers get more time off in January and February, and typically do not travel. Last year, as a second-year manager, Andrew went on the road to Iowa, Penn State, and Michigan. This year, he went to Palm Springs, California, for Michigan State’s Thanksgiving day game against Arizona. Next November, he’ll be with the Spartans in Hawaii for the Maui Invitational.
“It’s like a reward almost because you’ve stuck through it,” Andrew said. “Like, I went to Iowa last year. Iowa is not a fun place to go to, I’ll be honest.”
Managers jobs on road trips include loading and unloading the bus, moving equipment, and “taping” ballrooms - which consists of setting up tables and chairs on one side of a ballroom and using tape to mark off a half-court for walkthroughs. But road trips are some of their favorite and most memorable days of work.
Matt, too, had the opportunity to travel to Hawaii during his junior year, when MSU played in the Armed Forces Classic against Arizona in 2016. With five days in Hawaii and only one game, Matt and the team had time to enjoy themselves and the events put on for the game. While there, the team met with servicemembers and took a guided tour of Pearl Harbor.
“You think about it now, and I feel like I sound like a cheesy old man, but like, goosebumps when I think about the trip we took around the history we learned,” Matt said. “That was a learning experience. It cultured me, and that was a life experience more than it was just a basketball trip.”
Many college basketball coaches talk about their teams as families. Izzo does it often. But Izzo has also worked to create that family bond throughout the program. Every year, all former players and managers are invited to one home football and basketball game.
“Izzo's been there so long. That's why it works so well. He goes back to when my dad was a manager there. Like he invites everyone twice a year, so when players come back and I can go, ‘Hey, I'm Tom McCall's kid,’ and they go, ‘Oh my gosh, I have so many stories for you. Oh my gosh, you know, let's do this, this, and this.’ I don't have that, really, anywhere else in my life. And then going into the real world and seeing what people are like, it's like, wow, that's way more special than I ever thought,” Matt said. “So, just what he's created from a culture and an inclusive family aspect. That's what I really respect the most, and my favorite thing about him.”
One day while Matt was a manager, he brought his father and Andrew to practice as guests. Guards Cassius Winston, Joshua Langford, and Lourawls “Tum Tum” Nairn Jr. greeted the McCalls and struck up a 10-minute conversation.
“We were just random people that came to practice, it’s not like they knew we were Matt’s family or anything, but it just shows you the true character of them,” Andrew said. “It’s moments like that, it makes you want to be there, and it makes you want to be a part of something greater than yourself.”
Times like that make the youngest McCall think about his 9-year-old self dunking on a SKLZ mini-hoop in his Kalin Lucas jersey.
“I’m 5-foot-8, I’m not going to be able to make the team,” Andrew said. “But you always want to be a part of something greater than yourself. It hasn’t really hit me until this year that this is something I’ll be able to look back on and show my kids one day. I couldn’t be more thankful for that.”
Maybe someday those kids will be the third generation of McCall managers at Michigan State.