Christina O'Connor | The Roanoke Times

Bob Hayes

• Dedmon Center manager and recreation supervisor since 1994
• Radford native
• Bachelor of Science, Emory & Henry
• Resides in Christiansburg

Christina O'Connor | The Roanoke Times

Neal Leahy

• Dedmon Center manager and recreation supervisor since 1999
• 1997 Radford graduate
• Norwich, N.Y., native
• Resides in Fairlawn

  Quotable

  • “With everything from tickets, marketing, cheerleaders, band, etc., it’s certainly a big production. We have a very prepared staff who work hard to make sure that everyone involved, whether that be the teams, officials and fans, has an enjoyable experience at both our men’s and women’s basketball games.”

    -- Robert Lineburg, RU director of athletics

RADFORD -- When fans go to a Radford University basketball game, they probably think about such things amid the upcoming tipoff: players jumping, shooting, rebounding and passing and the numbers on the scoreboard after 40 minutes of play. It's likely the preparation that goes into the spectacle never crosses most ticket holders' minds.

For Bob Hayes, Neal Leahy and other members of the Dedmon Center support staff, preparing for the action is just as important as the game itself.

Hayes is Dedmon Center operations manager and Leahy facility manager. Their duties include getting the arena and (in season) the surrounding athletic fields ready for game day.

For both men's and women's basketball, the procedure is the same for Hayes and Leahy. Prior to a recent women's game against Charleston Southern, they were typically busy.

Most of the heavy lifting involved with setting up for basketball games comes during the preseason. The bleachers, scorers' table, press row, and team benches remain in place throughout the season.

"To take the tables and chairs down after every game would be a real hassle," Leahy said. "So we keep those up throughout the season. Our students who play here don't mess with our stuff because they realize the privilege of playing on the Dedmon Center floor."

Hayes first set up the visiting team and referees' lockers rooms, providing them with soap, towels and pregame schedules.

For the 3 p.m. game against Charleston Southern, it was 12:15 p.m., when he finished the locker room duty by putting postgame Gatorades and bottled water on ice for both teams.

"Some parts of this aren't glamorous," Hayes said as he scooped ice. "But it's all necessary for things to go smoothly."

Leahy is in charge of setting up game promotions. For the Charleston Southern game, the promotion was the Big South Conference's "Think Pink" campaign for breast cancer awareness. There was going to be a "Think Pink Shutout" at halftime. Leahy prepared for that.

Leahy is the also the public address announcer for men's and women's basketball, so his script writing routine began four to five hours before tipoff.

"Because I'm the PA announcer, it's up to me to write the scripts for our games," he said. "I've been doing the PA for men's basketball since I was a junior here at Radford, which was 1996. I've been doing women's basketball full time for a few years now. I have experience doing this, but if I don't write the scripts, I won't have anything to say at the games."

At 12:45, Leahy entered the arena to begin his setup duties. One was plugging in all of the electronic equipment to ensure everything worked.

Leahy checked the scoreboards, statistics board, message board, Precision Time referee system, buzzer, shot clocks, music system, the scorer's table lights and the public address system.

Coordinating everything is no easy task.

"Usually we try to set up everything a few hours before the game," Leahy said. "The reason we do that is because if something does go wrong, we'll have time to fix it. If a light on a buzzer doesn't go off, or the shot clock doesn't work, we need time to take the goal down and fix it."

"I'm also really the only person who sets up the music and PA system before games. It's a rather antiquated system with a lot of wires, so it takes a little patience and some knowledge of the system."

Student pickup basketball games and joggers on the overhead track continued until about 1 p.m. Hayes cleared the arena, and housekeepers came in to sweep the floors.

About 1:15 p.m., Hayes went to greet referees and visiting team members and show them to their dressing quarters.

At 1:30 p.m., student workers arrived to take down the auxiliary basketball goals and move bleachers. For conference matchups, the Big South streams live game video on the Internet. That video crew arrived as the students worked.

At 1:45 p.m., athletic media relations people showed up. Two of them, Brian Stanley and Chuck Altizer, prepared to assist the members of the media who would be on hand.

"Basically what we do is set up the stat monitors and keep live stats that run on our Web site and other sports sites," Stanley said. "I'll be setting up my computer and printer for stats. If we have any media requests we pass out game programs for them, as well as stats during halftime and postgame."

At 2 p.m., Hayes met with ticket manager Greig Denn. Doors then opened to the public. The arena began to fill quickly as both teams warmed up. Meanwhile, Radford's pep band, cheerleaders and dance team, The Rockers, were involved in their pregame routines.

All was done then. Hayes, Leahy and the rest of the staff sat down for a catered lunch in the media hospitality area in one of the corners of the arena.

"There are a lot of different people involved in this production," Hayes said, "but we do it so often it's just old hat for us."