The dirty work !`` Leslie Thurman never set out to become manager of the Siloam Springs football team, but when an injury forced her off the court, it opened a door to an opportunity she now embraces.
Posted on Friday, October 10, 2008
Daily Record photograph by Sarah Nader The senior manager for the Siloam Springs varsity football team, Leslie Thurman, 17, is shown during football practice Wednesday afternoon. Thurman has been a football manager for the past four years.
Leslie Thurman has never
been one to just go home
when the school bell rings at the end of the day. That’s why a feeling of absolute panic came over her when she tore a ligament in her hand when she was heading into the ninth grade. “ I had it fixed, but I couldn’t really play sports anymore, ” explained Thurman, now a senior at Siloam Springs High School. “ I had no idea what I was going to do. It was heartbreaking. ” Just like that, there was no more competitive softball, basketball, volleyball or cheerleading for Thurman. She tried, but any extended use of her hand was — and still is — extremely taxing. That’s when she heard the Panthers varsity football team was looking for another manager. Thurman loves football — high school, college and professional — and figured the manager position could be just what she was looking for. Going on four years later, Thurman is the senior student manager of the Panthers football team. She’s been on the sidelines of every Panthers game, out in the scorching heat during summer workouts, on the road to 7-on-7 tournaments and on charter buses with the team to away games. Basically, if the Panther football team has done it, she’s done it. She’s seen every play for the past four years — practice and games — and heard more of the locker-room and huddle conversations than even the most die-hard of Panther football fans.
Thurman said she still thinks about playing sports, but she also admits she couldn’t imagine not having had the best seat in the house for Panther football games for the past four years.
“ It’s to the point now that it’s almost like there’s a brother-sister relationship with me and the players, ” Thurman said. “ When you’re around as much as I am, you become family. I fix their helmets and Siloam Springs at home tonight equipment when it breaks. I type the rosters and chart their weight-lifting progress. A lot of people think being manager is an easy job and all we do is run them water. There’s a lot of hard stuff, too. ”
A few of “ the hard things” aren’t necessarily physically taxing as much as they are, well, “ disgusting, ” Thurman said. And there was a time when she didn’t know if everything about the job was for her.
“ Sweaty towels, ” Thurman groaned, when asked what the most unpleasant part of her job is. “ Sweaty towels and sweaty uniforms. A football locker room isn’t the most pleasant-smelling environment. It’s really stinky and gross. It’s even worse than I imagined. But I have to take all that sweaty, really nasty stuff and wash it after every game.
“ The first time I (did the laundry ), I thought it was the nastiest thing I’d ever done, ” she said. “ Now, I just do it. I guess I’m used to it. Don’t ask me how I am, but I am. ”
Thurman is one of four managers for the Panther football team, but she’s the high man — or woman, in this case — on the totem pole. During her four years, she’s been a part of four playoff teams. She’s seen the Panthers rise above expectations. She’s been standing on the sidelines during high points and a handful of low points along the way. There was plenty of finger nibbling to be done last week, watching as the Panthers had to grind out a touchdown in the final minute of their game against Vilonia to win 22-17 and keep their undefeated season intact.
While the Panthers were scrambling to get to the line of scrimmage and piece together a game-winning drive, Thurman was standing on one end of the sideline, so sucked into the game that she was almost unaware of the tool kit she clenched in one hand. In the other, she was strangling a towel out of nervousness. And if you were close enough to read her lips, you would have noticed she was saying a prayer.
Then, the Panthers scored, and Thurman was dishing out high-fives with everyone else on the sidelines. In fact, Thurman tends to do quite a bit of jumping on the sidelines. During those tense moments, the football fan in her definitely comes out.
Siloam Springs returns home against Morrilton tonight.
“ This whole season has been great so far, ” Thurman said. “ We had a great senior class last year, and a lot of people didn’t pick Siloam Springs to be on top this year. But getting to experience it all from the inside, you kind of have a feeling something great could happen. That’s why I like this so much. I get to hear and see so much no one outside the team ever does.
“ When another manager handed me a tool and showed me how to fix a helmet that first year, I was like, ‘ There’s no way I’m going to be doing this. ’ I’m not a tool person. I had no idea what I was doing. Now, that’s what I do. Things just kind of happened. ”
Thurman wouldn’t trade a minute of it.
“ When I see other girls playing the sports I used to play, it can be really hard for me, ” Thurman said. “ But I remind myself, this is usually something girls don’t do — and I’m really good at it. I play a part in this team and I love football. I view what I do as a privilege. ”
Well, maybe everything except the laundry part.
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