91�ֿ�

On a basketball game day at 91�ֿ�, the most visible people are easy to identify.

They are the ones in uniforms running onto the court. The coaches standing along the sideline. The players scoring points, grabbing rebounds and diving after loose balls.

But before the first shot goes up, an entire team has already been at work.

Someone has made sure the uniforms are ready. Someone has made sure the players are physically prepared. Someone has checked on an injury. Someone has tracked a player’s academic progress. Someone has made sure a player is eligible. Someone has handled the social media, the statistics and the media requests. Someone has packed the bags for the road trip. Someone has made sure the court is ready.

And someone is probably doing something the players and coaches will never know happened.

That is the point.

The support staff members surrounding 91�ֿ�’s men’s and women’s basketball programs are designed to make the extraordinary look routine. Their success often means that nobody notices them at all.

Rob Senderoff, head coach of the men’s basketball team, put it bluntly.

“It would probably be impossible,” Senderoff said when asked how different his job would be without the people working behind the scenes. “I can’t coach the roster without having all the people that help us, help us. Without those people in their roles, it would be impossible for me to coach the team.”

The same idea applies to the women’s program.

Fran Recchia, head coach of the women’s basketball team, said the program is special because of the people who surround her players.

For Suzette McQueen, who serves as the sport administrator for both men’s and women’s basketball, that is essentially the job description. 

McQueen is the deputy athletics director and senior woman administrator at 91�ֿ�. She also oversees the external operations unit, which includes communications, marketing, tickets, brand licensing and the department’s multimedia rights partnership.

But when it comes to basketball, her role is different.

She is the administrative link connecting the coaches to the larger athletics department.

Her job is to advise, support, recommend and, when necessary, say no.

“Really just to make their job easier so they can focus on coaching their program,” McQueen said.

She describes herself as a satellite.

She talks to academics. Compliance. The equipment room. The business office. Marketing. Communications. Facilities. Whoever needs to be involved with a basketball program, McQueen may be the person connecting those pieces.

And she does it for both teams.

“I want to be as not in the way as possible,” McQueen said.

That philosophy runs through virtually every corner of the basketball programs. 

The Invisible Work

McQueen has a unique perspective on the two teams because she sees them not just as individual programs but as complicated operations that require dozens of people and departments to function together.

She also sees something the fans don’t.

The support staff isn’t simply a collection of people performing separate jobs.

The athletic trainer knows how a player is feeling. The academic counselor knows what is happening in class. The strength coach sees the player in the weight room. The equipment staff knows whether everything is ready for practice. The administrator needs to know if something isn’t working.

That communication matters.

“I think it’s vital that there are conversations, not just with your head coach, but with your support staff,” McQueen said. “They have a lot of a heartbeat of the team and what’s going on when they’re not in practice, when they’re not in the weight room.”

McQueen calls the group an internal watch group.

“We are like thermometers,” she said. “We’re assessing the temperature of the team, and we can give feedback to the coaching staff to let them know what’s going on.”

That makes her role more than administrative.

She is another set of eyes on both programs.

And because she works with both teams, she can see the bigger picture while the individual support staff members focus on their specialized responsibilities.

Amy Densevich, associate athletic director for student-athlete support services and academic counselor for women’s basketball, spends her days dealing with things most fans would never associate with basketball: class schedules, academic eligibility, degree progress and tutoring, and she helps student-athletes balance the demands of college and competition. She works closely with Curtis Burkeen, learning specialist for women’s basketball, to help the players manage their academic demands.

“If there’s something going on academically or they say they’re struggling in a class and they take it to a coach, I want the coach to say, ‘No, no, no, go see Amy. Go see Amy because she can help you find a tutor or get you help with that course,’” Densevich said.

For Recchia, that work gives her coaching staff something every coach needs: the ability to focus.

“We literally can’t do what we do without our support staff,” Recchia said. “It’s impossible.”

She said the support staff allows the coaches to spend their time doing what they are there to do rather than trying to manage every aspect of a student-athlete’s life.

“And nobody sees the hours that they put in — how much earlier they have to get here to help us even prepare for practice or for traveling or looking ahead,” Recchia said. “They’ve already scheduled for classes next semester.”

Jana Ashley, associate director and athletic academic counselor, does much of the same work as Densevich but for the men’s basketball program.

Her work can begin with recruiting and helping transfers become eligible. It continues with tracking credits and progress toward graduation, scheduling classes and making sure student-athletes stay on top of their academic responsibilities.

Sometimes it means traveling with the team and holding a study hall in a hotel.

Sometimes it means waiting after a game because a player has an assignment due that night.

“When I started in this role, my first season, the team won a championship, and I got to cut down the net with them,” Ashley said. “And I almost felt like I hadn’t earned it because I come from a coaching background.”

Five years later, she sees it differently.

“There are things I do every day that hopefully will lead to them cutting down the net again in March,” Ashley said.

Senderoff sees that work firsthand.

He credited Ashley and the academic support staff, including Lynda Swan, learning specialist for men’s basketball, with helping produce a program in which 58 of the 59 players who have exhausted their eligibility during his tenure have graduated.

“The results of how well our guys have done since she has been our advisor, it’s off the charts,” Senderoff said.

The work that happens in Ashley’s office may seem far removed from a basketball game.

But it can determine whether a player is even allowed to participate in one. 

Keeping Players Available

For Sarah Jane “SJ” Novak, the senior athletic trainer for women’s basketball through a partnership with Cleveland Clinic, the ideal game is one in which the fans barely notice her.

Her job is to keep players healthy, help them recover and get them back on the court when injuries happen.

“My goal would be that you never see me other than behind the bench, maybe just giving a high-five to somebody because I don’t want to be seen,” Novak said. “I want our girls to be healthy.”

That means considerably more than taping an ankle before a game.

Hydration. Recovery. Treatment. Monitoring injuries. Communicating with coaches. Watching players closely enough to notice when something isn’t right.

Novak and Bob Lemieux, 91�ֿ�’s assistant athletics director for sports performance, work together to keep the women’s basketball players strong, healthy and available.

“Their best ability is their availability,” Novak said.

Recchia knows exactly how much trust she places in that work.

She said her players may actually spend more time with the support staff than they do with their coaches, particularly when they are recovering from injuries.

“I think the trust that you have with your support staff is vital because they’re with them all the time,” Recchia said.

That trust extends beyond physical health.

Recchia described the training room, academic offices and other support areas as places where players can be themselves away from the court.

“SJ is someone to lean on, someone that they can talk to, someone they can bring problems to, someone they can bring things to celebrate with,” Recchia said.

The same philosophy applies to Juju Seki, the athletic trainer for men’s basketball through a partnership with Cleveland Clinic.

Seki’s job includes the seemingly mundane parts of athletic health — stretching, hydration, snacks and recovery — as well as the moments that become much more obvious when something goes wrong.

“If I can keep my athletes healthy, that really relates to the team winning,” Seki said.

Seki and Henry Briscoe, the team’s head sports performance coach, work together to keep players healthy and prepared. Seki also helps connect players with resources, such as mental healthcare and nutrition services.

“The health and well-being of our players is those two people,” Senderoff said.

The goal is not simply to get someone through a game.

It is to keep the person healthy enough to continue being a basketball player, a student and a human being. 

The Work in the Weight Room

Lemieux sees his job similarly, although his work begins in the weight room.

His goal is not simply to make players stronger or faster. It is to put them in difficult situations and teach them how to respond.

“We get to put athletes in situations to do hard things — do things they’re not good at,” Lemieux said.

The important part comes next.

“And if you can put them in situations to do things they’re not good at and not quit and come back and try again and try again and try again, the minute that clicks or they don’t give up in the middle of something that’s challenging for them, that confidence carries over,” he said.

That confidence might show up in a pullup or a personal-best vertical jump.

Eventually, Lemieux hopes, it shows up when the stakes are higher.

“I think that that’s a huge way that the weight room or sports performance can contribute to an athlete’s success is not just about the physical things,” he said.

On the men’s side, Briscoe approaches the same responsibility with an emphasis on physical preparation, nutrition and mental toughness.

He sees himself as one part of a much larger machine.

“I know I’m doing what I’m supposed to do,” Briscoe said. “And I know the young men are going to get rewarded for that. Everybody else will succeed. The assistant coaches will succeed. The head coach will succeed. Everybody will succeed. We are all one part of a machine that if we all just concentrate and focus on doing our job, the machine will run perfectly.”

McQueen echoes that idea.

Because she works across both programs, she is often in a position to see how those individual pieces fit together.

In the offseason, she said, the support staff becomes even more important in establishing expectations.

“We get to be more of the thermostat and set the tone and set the temperature for what the expectations are,” McQueen said.

The distinction is a useful one.

The support staff members aren’t simply reacting to problems.

They are helping establish the environment in which the teams operate. 

The People Making Sure Everything Is There

Joe Michalowicz’s work might be the easiest to overlook.

As an assistant equipment manager, he is responsible for the physical things that allow teams to practice and play: uniforms, warmups, towels, laundry, game preparation and travel equipment.

His work often begins before most people arrive and ends after they leave.

For basketball, that means preparing uniforms and travel bags, making sure everything is where it needs to be and confirming it comes back after a road trip.

For the players and coaches, ideally, it means they don’t have to think about any of it.

“They know they’re going to show up on a game day and their jersey is going to be hanging, the shorts are going to be hanging, the warmup’s going to be there, and all they have to do is worry about playing the game,” Michalowicz said.

Senderoff described the same idea from the sideline.

“We don’t have to worry about uniform bags showing up on the bus, practice gear being ready,” he said. “But if they didn’t do their job, the fans would definitely notice that.”

That’s the theme again.

The best support is often the support that disappears. 

Telling the Story of the Team

Kellan Godfrey’s work is considerably more visible, but much of it still happens outside the arena’s spotlight.

As assistant director of athletic communications and social media, and the sports information director for men’s basketball, Godfrey manages the team’s social media, writes press releases, publishes stories, distributes information, coordinates interviews and handles media logistics.

Fans might see the finished post.

They don’t necessarily see the work that made it possible.

“People don’t really know all what goes into sports information,” Godfrey said, “but it is all of those kinds of unseen things to where if we suddenly stop doing it, you would notice very quickly.”

His job also gives the players a permanent record of their time at 91�ֿ�.

“I cover the career of these young men,” Godfrey said. “I want them to be able to look back on all of their digital footprint they had in their time here and know that their career was covered.”

It is also part of recruiting.

In an era in which prospective student-athletes and their families can follow a program long before they ever visit campus, the way a team presents itself matters.

“The social media world is really important in recruiting,” Godfrey said.

So even the content fans scroll past on their phones is another piece of the infrastructure surrounding the basketball program. 

The Unexpected Teammate

Then there is student Zac Titas.

Titas is a professional pilot major who serves as a practice player and manager for women’s basketball.

He and the other practice players do something that seems simple until you consider what it would mean if they weren’t there.

They practice against the team.

They rebound.

They help prepare practices.

They give the team another body, another challenge and another look.

“Our whole job is to make the lives of our players, lives of our coaches, easier so they can focus more on the basketball side of everything,” Titas said.

The practice players also provide something less tangible.

They bring energy.

They make mistakes.

They miss shots.

They provide competition.

And sometimes they make a long season more tolerable.

“Our job is to just be there with a good attitude and kind of make things more fun,” Titas said.

He understands that he is one small piece of a much larger operation.

“There’s so much that goes into being able to put together a team that goes out on the floor,” Titas said. “Like they say, it takes a village.” 

A Family Away From Home

That village may be the most important part of the story.

Because these support staff members aren’t simply performing isolated jobs.

They are interacting with the same student-athletes every day. They see them after practices, before games, in the training room, in the weight room, in academic meetings, on buses and in hotel study halls.

They see the person behind the jersey.

Densevich said that’s something fans rarely get to see.

“When fans come to the game, they see these all-star athletes and all-star players,” she said. “But when they’re in my office, they’re just normal 18- to 22-year-olds who just need to sit down and have a conversation.”

Recchia sees that side of the job too.

She said the support staff gives players places where they can talk about more than basketball.

“Everywhere is a safe space for them, and they can be their authentic selves with them,” Recchia said.

That matters because the players are not only athletes.

They are students. Friends. Sons and daughters. Young adults figuring out who they are.

And the people surrounding the programs often see those parts of them more than the fans — or even the coaches — do.

“It gives you a better understanding of what’s going on,” Lemieux said of the conversations he and other support staff have with players.

For McQueen, that is one of the most important parts of being the administrator for both teams.

She isn’t there to run either program.

The coaches lead their programs.

Her job is to make sure the people leading them have what they need.

Michalowicz agreed and described his role as one of service — “caring for other people” and working with a “servitude sort of mindset.”

“I’m doing it so that these teams can perform to their best ability,” Michalowicz said. “I’m looking out for them. I’m looking out for my players. I’m looking out for my coaches, trying to give them the best situation to succeed so that they don’t have to worry about those other factors.”

Recchia said that kind of support gives her something invaluable as a head coach: confidence that the people entrusted with her players are taking care of them. 

Nobody Has to Do Everything

Perhaps the clearest measure of the support staff’s value is what the coaches don’t have to do.

They don’t have to wash uniforms.

They don’t have to track every academic credit.

They don’t have to schedule every class.

They don’t have to treat injuries.

They don’t have to design every strength workout.

They don’t have to manage every social media post.

They don’t have to pack every travel bag.

They don’t have to solve every administrative problem.

They can coach.

And the players can play.

McQueen can make sure the right people are talking to each other.

Ashley and Densevich can make sure the players are managing their academic demands.

Novak and Seki can keep them healthy.

Lemieux and Briscoe can prepare their bodies.

Michalowicz can make sure their uniforms are waiting.

Godfrey can tell their stories.

Titas and other practice players can give them competition.

And dozens of other people — student managers, graduate assistants, facilities staff, equipment workers and others — can do the things that make the whole operation possible.

Senderoff said those people allow his coaching staff to focus on practice and games.

“Really, all of those folks behind the scenes allow our coaches to do our jobs at the highest level that we’re capable of doing it,” he said. “I know I try the best I can to make sure they know they’re appreciated.”

Recchia said she can make a promise to the parents of her players because of the people surrounding the program.

“Your daughter, I can guarantee, will be taken care of by our staff, our support staff and everyone who surrounds them,” she said.

And when those people do their jobs well, the people in the stands may never know their names.

That’s not a failure.

It’s the goal.

For 91�ֿ� basketball, there are two teams on the court.

And behind them are many more.

They are the people making sure the lights work, the uniforms are ready, the bodies are healthy, the grades are on track, the practices are competitive, the stories are told, the road bags are packed and the coaches have the freedom to think about the next opponent.

They are the people who make it possible for everyone else to focus on basketball.

And maybe the best way to recognize them is to understand why fans rarely notice them.

Because when the teams behind the teams are doing their jobs, everything simply works.