University of Tennessee Athletics
Trail Tackles More than Football as a Team Manager
October 12, 2008 | Football
Oct. 12, 2008
Adam C. Hardebeck
Special to UTSports.com
As Nick Trail sits on a bench looking out across the impressive Neyland-Thompson Sports Center, he recalls how he became a football manager.
"I started out just working the gate at practice, letting in media and keeping out people who weren't allowed," Trail said. "I hung around long enough, I guess, and they had to do something with me."
Trail, a graduate student in the UT college of communications, is now one of only 15 or so student managers who get the opportunity to take care of the Volunteer football team.
Like the other student managers, Trail does his fair share of work scrubbing helmets, washing uniforms, handing out cleats and maintaining the locker room after each football practice.
Trail is different, though-- not in the daily tasks he performs or the way he gets along with the other managers. He has Cerebral Palsy, but he wouldn't even think of letting it restrain him from any of his responsibilities to the team.
"I've never known anything else, so why would I let it bother me or hold me back from anything?" he said. "I always look forward, never back at past circumstances."
Sure it's hard enough to become an equipment manager, as getting a job requires that you know somebody who knows somebody. Although Trail didn't have any references, he was determined enough to work his way into a position in the athletics department.
"If there's anything I've learned from working here, it's that you really can do anything if you're persistent enough and work at it."
Trail contacted disability services in 2002, his freshman year, and asked if there was anything he could do to get involved with the football team. Dan Carlson, then-director of disability services, put in a good word for him to the athletics department. Sure enough, the department found a duty for him, allowing him to be the gate manager-- a task that he still performs today.
After a year of solely working the gate, he was able to get the attention of head equipment manager Roger Frazier during the beginning of the 2003 season. Frazier asked Trail if he wanted to become a manager while keeping his spot at the gate.
"I jumped at the opportunity, and I've been doing it ever since," said Trail.
He's now worked 65 football games since the fall of 2003. That makes him the longest tenured student manager in the equipment room.
His experience in the equipment room, known as "the cage" to regulars around the complex, has recently made him somewhat of an expert on all things orange. Trail has met a lot of people and been to so many games that he has no problem taking a seat to reminisce the Volunteers five overtime win over Alabama in 2003. He'll even tell all about the team's improbable run to the SEC Championship last season despite starting 1-2.
Trail saves his best stories for some of the behind the scenes action that an outsider would miss.
"The funniest thing that's happened to me wasn't really that funny until I look back at it. Last year at Alabama, I fell while running out of the tunnel and one of the staff members had to scoop me up, otherwise we would have had a pileup on the field," he said.
That's one of his better stories, but Trail also laughs about a tradition that has stuck around because of the superstition of his fellow managers.
"Every time we've played at Georgia since 2004, I've let the managers shave my head into a Mohawk and take my picture while I'm poking my head out of UGA's dog house," Trail said. "Since we started doing it, we've had some success at Georgia, so we'll keep doing it."
Trail has countless stories, but perhaps the greatest story is the one that he doesn't need to tell.
He doesn't need to talk about the hurdles he's faced to get where he is. He doesn't need to bring up the list of accomplishments he will have achieved upon completion of his time here. He'll not only have two degrees-- a bachelor's in psychology and a master's in communications-- but he'll also have countless contacts with UT players and personnel.
"Building relationships with people here and knowing them personally instead of just as a number on a jersey or a face has probably been the best part of my job."
The most special achievement that Trail has at UT, however, has been his ability to "run through the T" before every home football game. That is a big enough honor for those knowledgeable about Tennessee's football traditions-- a donor once paid $1 million to participate in the pre-game run out.
"When I was a kid I always said that I wanted to run through the T, and my neighbor always told me I would," Trail said. "I bet even he didn't believe what he was saying."
For Nick, who wasn't able to walk until middle school, the run means even more. It's bigger than usual because it doesn't come without a little extra effort.
"My right leg is shorter than the left, so running can be difficult for me, that's why I practice, because it always gets me ready."
Yes, he even practices. Every August before the season opener, Trail puts on his Adidas sweats and practices his run through the T on the indoor turf field. He says that he usually does it three times a week for a couple of weeks before the initial kickoff.
As Trail recollects running through T, a few football players walk by on their way to meetings. They stop and chat to other guys, but they all save their biggest smiles and greetings for Nick. You get the feeling from the warm hello that Trail is part of the team, which he clearly is. Decked out in his Adidas wind suit, he really has made a home in the football complex.
Considering all of the hours spent here and the 60-plus games that have found him on the sidelines, it's no wonder.
