National Association of Collegiate Basketball Managers

e s t a b l i s h e d   2 0 1 1

t h e   o f f i c i a l   w e b s i t e    o f   t h e

08/08/11

Kat Vosters, University of Wisconsin

For as long as he can remember, Wisconsin men’s basketball Director of Operations Luke Wainwright considered sports his biggest focus and passion in life, outside of his family. Ever since he decided to trade in his jersey for a playbook, Wainwright started taking the steps necessary to reach his goal of “Head Coach” — and is jumping ahead quicker than most.  

“I’m 100 percent towards being a coach,” the 25-year-old said.  “There’s no part of me that wants to be an administrator, and that’s what this position is.  I try to take any position I’m in and find something positive about it.  Understanding this side of the business has been and will continue to be invaluable when I move on to the coaching side.”

A Verona, Wis.-native, Wainwright spent much of his childhood playing various sports and attending the Verona Wildcats’ varsity football and basketball games. 

His first full sentence was, “Play ball, Dad?” his mother, Sue Wainwright, recalled.  “We went to many of the high school games, and Luke could stay focused on the entire game at the age of three.”

His father, Mark Wainwright, coached him during his younger years, while his mother and two sisters, Danielle and Abbey, cheered him on from the sidelines. 

“We watched him work through some of the challenges that come with being in high pressure positions,” his mother remembers.  “Quarterback, point guard, pitcher—many people don’t see that side of the athlete when they are watching from the stands.”

Wainwright entered high school during Verona head football coach Dave Richardson’s first season running the program. He and Alan Buss, Wainwright’s high school basketball coach, worked closely with Luke as he developed in all areas of his life.  Wainwright said Buss knew how focused he was on sports and basketball at a young age, as Luke attended his summer basketball camps since age nine.

“I did a lot of maturing as a person and as an athlete through those two guys,” Wainwright admirably said of his high school coaches.

Wainwright’s parents affirmed the influence Luke’s coaches had on his development.

“His coaches were wonderful role models on and off the field and court.  They had a huge impact on him [wanting to become a coach],” his mother said.

Although Wainwright earned varsity letters in golf and baseball as an underclassman at Verona, he opted to focus his last two years solely on football and basketball.

As a first-team-all-conference honoree in basketball, Wainwright prepared for his 2004 graduation from high school with plans to play collegiate basketball at Edgewood, a private Madison-area Division III school just eight miles from his alma mater.

With no strong idea as to what wanted to do with his education and future, Wainwright initially thought he would steer away from the route many of his family members chose—teaching and coaching. 

“That’s what my life revolved around and I wanted to try to experience something new,” Wainwright said of his family’s tradition, adding that he considered studying business or attending law school instead.

  

It wasn’t until his last semester as a Wildcat that Wainwright thoroughly considered coaching.  At the time, he was pushing through two-a-day workouts preparing for his career at Edgewood when Coach Richardson approached him about potentially coming back to coach.

“I think he saw something in me that I didn’t necessarily see at the time,” Wainwright recalled from their conversation seven years ago.  “I still had the mindset of an athlete; I wanted to play.”

“Luke was a team captain and one of our best athletes his senior year.  He was a hard worker all the time; he led by example,” Richardson said, adding that Wainwright was always first in sprints.  “Luke was a coach on the field and knew our system very well.  It made perfect sense to try to bring him back to coach.”

Wainwright accepted the offer, and began coaching as Verona football’s junior varsity assistant at 18, balancing his newfound coaching career with his first semester of college and collegiate basketball.

Filling the role of the young assistant, Wainwright felt that promoting a fun and positive environment for the kids was part of his job; yet he never let his age and personal relationships with his players stand in the way of production on the football field.

“Luke was one of those coaches who really related to his players,” said Justin Scanlon, a 2008 Verona graduate who played football for Wainwright.  “He was always there for us and had all the confidence in the world in us, and that’s what I respected most about him.” 

Scanlon added that although Wainwright wasn’t getting paid much, he gave up all his free time to coach his team and better his players.  “That speaks volumes about what kind of person he was on and off the field.”

“I was always conscious of who I am and where I came from,” Wainwright said of his coaching experience at Verona.  “I came from this school.  I played for these guys.  My parents taught here, and I was always aware of that and of how [the players] would perceive that.”

Although Wainwright was initially confident with his transition from high school to collegiate sports, he realized mid-way through his sophomore season that playing basketball for Edgewood was not as rewarding as he first imagined.

After several weeks of deep thought and self-reflection, Wainwright made the decision to step away from Edgewood and from playing basketball altogether.

“It was a difficult time for all of us,” Wainwright’s mother said of Luke’s decision to withdraw from Edgewood.  “He has always had high expectations for himself, and through this struggle he became even more solid in his conviction to his dream.”

After leaving Edgewood, Wainwright stepped away from sports for the first time in his life and enrolled at Madison Area Technical College in preparation to transfer to the University of Wisconsin-Madison in the fall.

After just a few months, he realized what he looked forward to most was going to football practice in Verona.  He knew he wanted to pursue sports at Wisconsin, so he turned to Ben Hoffmann, Wainwright’s biggest role model during his time at Verona, for advice.

Hoffmann served as Wainwright’s seventh grade football coach, as well as one of his coaches for basketball or football for the entirety of his high school career.  A young coach, Hoffmann played a similar role to Wainwright that Wainwright did to his players at Verona.

“I’ve never competed with a group of people on a day-to-day basis like I did when he was the head coach of our junior varsity basketball team,” Wainwright said of Hoffmann.  “His intensity, his competitiveness, his focus, his passion towards the game—he had a great balance about making it fun, but being serious and getting things done.”

In addition to coaching at Verona, Hoffmann was an All-American title-winning point guard at University of Wisconsin-Platteville under Bo Ryan, now head coach at Wisconsin.

Hoffmann contacted his former coach, and Ryan connected Wainwright to Wisconsin’s then director of basketball operations, Will Ryan, in the spring of 2006.  Soon after his first contact with Wisconsin basketball, Wainwright got an interview and walked out with a job as a student-manager, a position he held for the next three years.

“Seeing how [Wisconsin basketball] does the process now, I was very lucky in the sense that I think Coach Hoffmann must have given me a great recommendation to Coach Ryan and Will,” Wainwright said of his initial hiring process.  “I was kind of shocked when I left, like, ‘that was it, I was just hired?’” 

It didn’t take him long to know what he wanted out of his experience as a manager. 

“From day one, my mindset was that this was an internship,” Wainwright said of his first thoughts on the job.  “This wasn’t a hobby or a part time job, this is a door that's presenting itself to you.  Now what are you going to do with it?”

Beginning the 2011-2012 season, Wainwright will have been promoted each of the six years that he has worked for Wisconsin basketball.

“The timing of the way things worked out was 100 percent in my favor,” Wainwright said of his yearly promotions.  He started as a manager, then moved up to assistant head manager; his third year head manager. After graduating with a history degree in 2009, Wainwright was hired as the program assistant.

“Luke was thrilled to have the opportunity to work for the Badgers,” Wainwright’s mother recalled.  “We were impressed with the amount of responsibility given to him even in those first jobs.  He wants to learn everything he can about being in charge of a basketball program so that he can apply that to his own team someday.”

In the coaching world, a job could be taken from or offered to you at any moment. Many Wisconsin basketball staff members moved on with their careers in the fall of 2010, opening the door for Wainwright to move up from his previous position of program assistant.

When former Wisconsin assistant coach Howard Moore took the head-coaching job at University of Illinois-Chicago, Wainwright was offered the video coordinator position after then-video coordinator Matt Ryan, Bo Ryan’s youngest son, left to serve as Moore’s director of basketball operations.

Weeks later, another position was vacated when Wisconsin’s former director of operations took his career to Major League Baseball.  On September 22nd, 2010, Wainwright drove Coach Ryan to an event in Baraboo, Wis., where Ryan introduced him as his new director of operations.

“I was taken aback and had to shake peoples’ hands and sit through two hours of this book signing,” Wainwright recalled of the announcement of his promotion.  “He brought it up in his sly ‘Coach Ryan’ way.  I was like, ‘did I hear that correctly?  Did he have a brain fart?’” 

No brain fart.  Ryan felt confident with Wainwright’s experience with the program, which prompted Luke to immediately step down from his coaching job at Verona and begin preparing for the 2010-2011 Wisconsin basketball season.

“Luke has been with our program for several years handling a variety of responsibilities,” Ryan said.  “His knowledge of the ins and outs of our program makes him an asset as our director of operations.”

After his first season serving as Wisconsin’s interim director of basketball operations, Ryan and the athletic department had no doubts that Wainwright was the best choice.  This April, he was chosen over 260 applicants to serve as the full-time director of basketball operations.

“One year, one step,” Wainwright said of his advancements, smiling almost in disbelief.  “It’s absolutely insane.”

Although this position is a huge step in his career, it hasn’t been easy.

“The things I’ve learned in the last eight to nine months have been invaluable,” Wainwright said.  “Has it been crazy? Yes. Has it been stressful? Absolutely. But I’m not in a hurry to leave this position; I’ve learned a lot from this.”

Wisconsin basketball manager Jim Bernatz thinks Wainwright’s skills make him the perfect fit for the program.

“The only time a director of operations gets noticed is when something does not go smoothly,” Bernatz observed.  “It takes a self-assured and internally driven man to flourish in that kind of position.”

In addition to being successful on the job, Wainwright keeps close relationships with his staff, regularly playing pick-up ball on the Kohl Center court during his lunch hour or in the evenings.

Paul Robinson, a friend and fellow manager of Wainwright before his promotions, said Wainwright does a great job of separating work and friendship at the flip of a switch. 

First-year manager Mike Van Straten agreed, saying Luke finds the perfect balance between being professional, but also approachable.  “He’s very easy to talk to and has a great future ahead of him [as a coach].  Luke sets a great example for all of us.”

As for his future, Wainwright is taking things day by day, but still keeps his goal in mind. 

“The day I committed to coaching in my mind, I haven’t stopped thinking about the day I become a head coach.” Wainwright continued, “I like the concept of being in a gym with 15 guys.  You have 15 pairs of eyes looking at you, and if I look at even one of those 15 guys in the eye, I’ve made a connection with him somehow.  I’ve gotten a feeling of how I need to communicate with that person, and I value those connections.” 

His parents, among many, are confident that Wainwright will be a successful head coach because of his passion for family and the game of basketball.  “He will have high expectations for himself, his players and his staff, but will treat everyone with great respect,” they proudly remarked.  “He has made believers out of us.”

“I have never met a more focused and driven individual,” Coach Richardson said of Wainwright.  “I would love to see Luke come back [to Verona] and take over this program, but I think he is shooting for bigger things and greater challenges.  He is going to be great at whatever he does.”

ONE YEAR, ONE STEP

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