HEROES of the TOURNAMENT It was January 4, 2021, when the NCAA announced that all 67 games in the 2021 men’s basketball tournament would be played entirely in one state, Indiana, with the majority of the 67 games in the city of Indianapolis. With the regular basketball season schedules often fractured during the COVID-19 pandemic, NCAA Senior Vice President of Basketball Dan Gavitt and Managing Director of Men’s Basketball JoAn Scot eschewed the theory of thinking out of the box and instead thought more about building a box-like, controlled environment, aka BUBBLE. What better place than Indianapolis, home of the NCAA headquarters and a very central location in America to have 68 teams come together. One of the many tasks for Scot and her team was the need for team hosts or ambassadors to help provide services for the participating teams. At every tournament venue, college conferences and the NCAA utilize team hosts, usually local volunteers, to assist the teams which may include everything from making dinner reservations, to transportation issues and various other needs. The traditional plan of using local volunteers was problematic due to the pandemic so Scot reached out to NABC Executive Director Craig Robinson for some assistance. “I called Craig I to see if he might help in securing team managers for the positions and he suggested that we use the McLendon Minority Leaders to fill this gap while also providing a great opportunity for these young people,” said Scot. The McLendon Minority Leadership program was the brainchild of Kentucky head coach and NABC board member John Calipari. The initiative, named in honor of Hall of Fame coach John McLendon, was created to provide young minority candidates with opportunities to have internships in various collegiate athletic administrative positions. With assistance from Harvard coach Tommy Amaker and Frank Martin, head coach at South Carolina, college coaches in many sports across the country funded some 30 positions for these leaders in its first year. It proved to be a solid fit for this year’s tournament with the plan to have one ambassador for every four teams in the 68-team field. The ambassador would assist with movement throughout the bubble to meeting rooms, practice facilities, meals and everything needed in a very controlled environment. Scot then reached out to a pair of longtime athletic administrators, former Big 12 Associate Commissioner Tim Allen and Steve Pyne, former Director of Events and Facility Management at the University of Utah, to manage the ambassadors.
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“Steve and I served as directors for the ambassadors and we had a lieutenant at each hotel. These were people we were familiar with who had experience with conference tournaments and NCAA events,“ said Allen. “We met from January to March, usually 14 hours per week with NCAA officials on calls to discuss all the details for the tournament.” It was Pyne who developed the ambassadors program with all of the documentation, creating checklists and one-pagers with tasks for the McLendon Leaders in the morning, midday and night. There were different styles for everyone with all making contributions. “Each ambassador was assigned to two teams and worked closely with the team administrators and directors of operations (DOBOS) to accommodate the needs of the group,” Pyne said. On each floor of the hotels – there was an essential closet for the teams and that was the responsibility of the ambassadors because the hotel personnel did not meet the protocols in place. Items in the closet included towels, bedding, water, trash bags, shampoo and other bathroom products as the team members were confined to their floor and rooms. “The ambassadors were in key roles here and sometimes they just had to figure out where to go and they became very resourceful.,” said Allen. “Everyone came together and had a daily checklist to follow.” “Learning about the importance of attention to details was a key and the ambassadors were unified during the tournament, helping and covering for each other each other when needed,” said Pyne. “Each night at our meetings, there were some teaching moments on how to handle certain situations and the ambassadors also learned to network during the time in the bubble.” Allen and Pyne agreed that hosting the tournament in the bubble was more than they could have imagined. “Using the McLendon Leaders turned out to be the greatest thing as the coaches, staffs and teams had only great things to say about them. All the comments we had were extremely positive and some of the leaders were even offered positions coming from the experience,” said Scot. “I think that they will appreciate the opportunity they experienced more in 10-15 years when they have a better understanding of the depth of networking. The leaders learned the importance of working hard and being responsible as they supported the everyday needs of the teams they were working with.” “They turned out to be the heroes of the tournament.”
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