They are invisible--and often invaluable--members of sports teams.

When box lunches and hotel rooms are needed, they answer the call. When arrangements are needed for transportation, they make the call.

Student managers do their jobs without pay and without much thanks from the general public. And they are usually the people everybody on the team turns to when something goes awry.

Every team has its own problems. Take football, for instance.

Eight managers have to provide for the needs of about 180 football players even before August practice. The needs of the players can be pretty extensive. Just ask head undergraduate football manage Lisa Peets '88.

"Getting us in Claverly Hall, getting our meals in the Union, making sure that we had the fields lined, that all the equipment was new, that the equipment people knew what they needed, that the managers could be here early, that the coaches had a place to stay, that everybody had sheets and towels and pillowcases. All of the most ridiculous little things," Peets says.

"That's probably the hardest," says assistant varsity manager Jill Maza '88. "The coaches tell us what they need out on the field before the practice and we make sure it's all there. They count on us for everything."

Even after the hot, hectic days of fall practice there is still the matter of helping out with regular practice.

"We go to every single practice, and we've got at least two or three at varsity and one to two people at freshman practice every single day," says head freshman manager Yazmin Mehdi '90

On game days, managers have their hands in many tasks, including finding halftime resting stops for their teams.

During the Harvard-Brown football game in Providence this year, football Coach Joe Restic and the football managers decided to move the players halftime resting room from under the stadium (which was unkept) to their changing room across the street (which included a number of amenities). It didn't quite work out.

"Suddenly, the players start charging across the field towards the rooms under the stadium," says head varsity manager Mary Reyes '89. "We had to bring everything back. You should have seen it; it was just people running, carrying these huge blackboards across the field."

But the managers worked as a team, which helps in all the crisis situations which football, and other sports, have.

"I think one of the most important things is working with other managers," Peets says. "It is a very large sport, and it's not possible for one person to do everything."

"You've got to relay confidence," Reyes says. "If you don't, then the whole program doesn't know what to do. You have to relay confidence even if things are totally falling down around you."