UP CLOSE: NSU equipment manager enjoys padding athletes for battle

Kerry Conner wed his fiancee, Marsiah Woods, on Saturday.

But throughout the fall, the 27-year-old Thibodaux resident was practically married to the Nicholls State football team as head equipment manager. Connor spent long hours as the “man behind the scenes,” making sure the Colonels were properly equipped for the gridiron.

The SportsNet met with Conner to discuss what could be considered one of the most underappreciated jobs in college athletics.

SportsNet: With the holidays coming up and your honeymoon, are you looking forward to taking time off?

Kerry Conner: Yeah. I’m looking forward to spending time with my wife…

Right now, there’s not much going on with the football season being over, coaches are out recruiting and school being over with. So it seems like the perfect time.

SN: Will you be going anywhere?

KC: We’ll be going to New Orleans. During the football season, things were kind of hectic and I didn’t really have a chance to spend a whole lot of time with my fiancee. But getting this time off with her gives me a chance to catch up over the honeymoon. It will give us a chance to spend some time alone.

SN: You’ve obviously spent a lot of time with the football team this fall. Is that the sport that keeps you the busiest?

KC: Football is 90 percent of my job. I do deal with softball as well, and a little of baseball. The other sports kind of take care of themselves.

SN: No hoops?

KC: No sir. We have student managers for basketball. I just oversee everything. If anything happens, I can help out.

SN: Walk me through a typical week as an equipment manager?

KC: During football season, we’ll start on a Monday. The team has off, so there’s nothing much going on that day, except for the players working out. Tuesday through Thursday the players return to practice. On Thursday, if we have an away game, I rent a U-Haul truck and pack it up with everything.

SN: And this includes…?

KC: All of the players’ equipment and my equipment (trunks filled with extra helmets, pads, and things that might get lost or broken). I also pack up the athletic training equipment as well.

SN: Do anything else before games?

KC: Me and my student managers do a little helmet maintenance. This entails cleaning the inside and outside of helmets and replacing hardware. It’s a very tedious job, but I tell my guys that the best satisfaction I get is making sure helmets look good. There’s no scuff marks and the decals look new and they’re clean inside and out.

SN: Think you have an underappreciated job?

KC: It is. It’s not a job where you will get a lot of ‘thank you’s’ a lot of the time, but you just have to learn to deal with it. Sometimes the coaches and players don’t thank you every day, but my satisfaction comes from being able to put those players out in the best possible equipment known to mankind. If they look good, then I look good.

I’m pretty much the man behind the scenes. I’d rather be in the background than be in the spotlight.

SN: I’m guessing the smell can get pretty bad at times.

KC: Definitely. Definitely. One of the worst times is after football games. You have guys playing on grass that’s muddy a lot of times. It’s terrible. You have mud and grass, and those guys don’t smell very good after games anyway. So all of those things combined make it a tough situation. But our job as an equipment staff is to get the team ready for the next week.

SN: Which sport is the hardest to manage?

KC: Football definitely. With other sports, like baseball for instance, you’re dealing with 40 guys. In football you’re dealing with more than 100 guys. And it’s not just the players. You have to make sure the coaches are happy as well, because if they’re not happy, then you’re not going to be happy.

SN: But there has to be some pretty nice perks to the job.

KC: Traveling. You get to go to different places every year. I’ve been blessed enough to go to Montana three times when I was with Northwestern State, and each time I went it was better and better. It’s a beautiful place to go to. And going to Reno, Nevada to see Nicholls State play earlier this year was great as well. Getting to see the “Biggest Little City” was a good experience – not only for myself, but also for most of my crew. It’s nice getting to go ahead and see places you always hear about.

SN: When you finally get away from the locker rooms, what do you do to wind down?

KC: Pretty much, I try to hide from everybody. I try to go unnoticed because I don’t want to be seen. I try to have a little bit of “me” time because I deal with a lot of people through my job.

SN: How did you come to this job? Did you always have a background in sports?

KC: No sir. Actually, I was at Northwestern State as a student in the band, struggling to make ends meet. I came across a job to be an equipment manager, and I figured it would just be a job to make some extra money, but I ended up graduating and getting certified and became the head equipment manager at Northwestern State. Then I came to Nicholls State. Before then, I also did some internships with the Dolphins and Saints, which were good experiences that helped me to become what I am right now.

SN: Enjoyed working in Florida?

KC: It was great. It was a lot of hard work and a lot of long hours, but the experience I took away from there was great. I really enjoyed it.

SN: See yourself sticking around at NSU for a while longer?

KC: Well, I’m trying to. I’m loving it down here, because I’m just an hour away from my home in New Iberia. I would like to stay here a little while longer, and maybe even settle down here. You never know what the future holds. Something better might come along and maybe one day I’ll leave, but right now I’m definitely enjoying my time here.

Colonels equipment manager Kerry Conner spends a lot of time around shoulder pads and helmets each fall. (Photo by CHRIS SCARNATI

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