At every wrestling practice, dual and tournament, seniors Emily Batsford and Jennifer Taaffe are present as managers for the team. El Estoque sits down with them as they share their experiences on the job.

El Estoque: What’s your job for the wrestling team?
Jennifer: We take care of a lot of the things on the team so the coaches don’t have to. We take the singlets after the tournaments and take them home and wash them, and we take stats at all the tournaments and duals.
Emily: I’m painting something on the wall in the wrestling room.

EE: What is an interesting experience you’ve had as a team manager?
E: We were at a tournament at Madera, Calif. and it was called the Zinkin Classic and it was a really big tournament. We were walking to chase after someone and this guy was like, “Excuse me, you guys dropped something.” When obviously we hadn’t dropped anything.
J: I watched him throw a piece of paper and I second-guessed myself, and I was like, “Dude, did you drop something?”, even though I saw him throw it. So, we just walked past that time, and he it did [it] a second time when we walked past and it was this index card with his number written on it and his Twitter account.

EE: Did you know a lot about wrestling before you became team managers?
E: I went to a bunch of [wrestling matches] because of my brother [Audie Batsford], so I had a basic understanding, but then we were taught really basically, so we were never really taught. We had to teach ourselves.

EE: Do you enjoy being managers? What do you feel you get out of it?
J: I think it’s just fun. We’re seniors, so it’s something to pass the time. We’re not just wasting our time at home. And sports teams, they form a bond. It’s fun to be part of the team. I’d like to think that they value us on the team, because they do tell us that they like us being there. And if we’re not there, they give us a hard time. Like, “Where were you guys? Something better?”
E: We both have work on Tuesdays, so we’re not at practice. And then when I go on Wednesdays, they’re always like “Where were you?” and I’m like, “Oh, I had work” and they’re like, “Oh, so you don’t love us anymore?” So it’s a joking, family thing.

EE: So what do you do at the practices?
E: At practice, most of the time I’m just working on painting the wall, but I messed up on part of it so I’m waiting the custodian to get me paint so I can actually finish it.
J: Sometimes they just have us time things. They’ll do live wrestling, which is what they do at a dual, so they go against a partner and they’ll do that for some time.
E: Sometimes we do Starbucks runs.
J: Those are always nice.
E: If we’re not being used, we just leave.
J: Or we can just play around.

EE: Do you talk to the coaches a lot? Or mostly students?
E: We talk a lot with the coaches.
J: We have a good relationship with the coaches.
E: At tournaments is when we talk to them the most, or at practice when they have down time. They talk to us because we’re always standing there and it’s like, “Oh, go get this person. Help this person.” So we know everything, basically. About the coaches. And all the secrets that we probably shouldn’t know.
J: Yeah, we know all the secrets.