What a difference a year makes.
Logan Baumann, a 6'0" guard who was serving as team manager, was invited to join the Louisville Cardinals as a walk-on last season when Mike Marra suffered a season-ending injury. He appeared in four games - including mop-up minutes vs. Wichita State - and made the wild ride to the Final Four in uniform. One assumes he’s going to be the recipient of a title ring, in fact.
Pretty cool story. You almost wish it had ended there.
Why?
Because this season, we’ll see Baumann back picking up towels and doing laundry for the squad.
The Louisville Courier-Journal has the story of Baumann’s meteoric rise and subsequent return to earth:Logan Baumann, a member of the University of Louisville’s national championship basketball team, will resume his role as a student manager for the Cardinals this season as coach Rick Pitino welcomes a pair of new walk-ons for 2013-2014.
The two new non-scholarship players replace Baumann, Michael Baffour and Jordan Bond, each of whom were one-year players for U of L.
“They chose a good year,” [U of L team spokesman Kenny] Klein said.As a man with no discernable basketball-related talent outside of writing about it, I can tell you that I’d happily mop up sweat for three years if I had one fantastic season on the bench thrown into the mix as well. Hopefully Baumann is proud of his role and will end up with some happy memories of his championship season.