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Originally Posted by NoMyths
Are there tryouts for this sort of thing? What do they say to the folks who don't quite make the cut?
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No such thing. There's always *something* that they can do. Currently at Tucker there's:
Bud--as stated above, operates at a barely functional area in many areas, but is the stats man extraordinaire for football, basketball and baseball
Tony--mentally "slow" kid in his early 20's but is in pretty good shape, has been the ball boy for as long as I can remember. SPRINTS the balls on and off the field
"Doodie" (sp?)--older guy (50's?) who doesn't seem functional in really any area, rambles when he talks, wouldn't be surprising to learn he can't read or write, but he's takes very seriously the responsibilities of picking up discarded athletic tape on the sidelines, and of making sure we don't get penalties by keeping all of our players in the box
Evan--late teens kid with Downs' Syndrome. Puts the dummies up after practice on Thursdays. No game-day responsibilities that I've noticed (but travels with the team)
Johnny--high school kid who seems somewhat "normal" mentally (Although very "quirky"..not sure if he's in special ed or not), but is very small...i mean tiny...maybe 4'6", 80 pounds...waterboy on game day
All travel with the team, are on the sidelines (or in Bud's case, in the booth) during the games, and are generally held up in a very positive light due to their involvement with the program.
As JIMGA and the SI article mentioned, this isn't in any way, shape, or form unique to Tucker. For whatever reason, this is a pretty common thing around the South.
Well, Bud is a bit of a unique case in that most of the college coaches in the southeast seem to know him by name. Heck, I knew who he was before I got involved at Tucker. I was at a Tech basketball game in the early-mid 90's, and about 10 minutes before tipoff, I noticed Bud wandering down toward courtside. Nobody stopped him, and Cremins smiled, waved him through security, and shook his hand when he got there