McNeese’s unexpected star? The boom-box-toting supervisor contributing to its March
From their coach with the second-best winning percentage in the sport over the previous 2 years to their 21-1 record against conference opponents, the McNeese Cowboys aren’t your typical mid-major Cinderella hopeful.To discover the face of the group, look no more than who leads it out of the locker room before games.It isn’t vibrant guard Javohn Garcia, who earlier this month earned Southland Conference Gamer of the Year honors. Nor is it shot-blocking forward Christian Shumate, who just recently was called conference Defensive Gamer of the Year. A reasonable guess might be Will Wade, the resurgent coach who has gone from federal wiretaps and a firing at LSU to a 49-8 record in 2 years with his new team.But it’s not him either.Rather, the face of the Cowboys is a 5-foot-7, bespectacled, boom box-toting
group manager.IT ALL STARTED with a regular home game for the Cowboys versus Texas A&M -Corpus Christi in late February. Like Amir Khan has actually done for every game given that joining the team’s manager personnel, he raised a boom box and led McNeese down the Legacy Center’s locker room tunnel. The opening bars of Lud Foe’s “In & Out, “the selected soundtrack for that night’s walkout, began to play.Editor’s Picks 1 Related Then something new took place. Khan realized he had the lyrics down pat and instinctively started rapping along. Word for word, bar for bar.”It
‘s usually
a tune that I don’t understand,”Khan told ESPN.” This time, it was a little various because I knew the tune. [The players] didn’t understand that.” It showed in their response. Gradually but undoubtedly the players surrounded Khan, encouraging him as he went on. “It was subtle really
shocking, “stated junior guard DJ Richards Jr., who chooses the walkout tune for each game.”Not too many people understand Lud Enemy
‘In & Out,’and for Amir to begin singing it, it absolutely turned me up.” Phillip Mitchell Jr., an assistant advertisement for innovative media at McNeese, recorded the scene, quickly panning his cam to focus on the unanticipated star of the minute.
The walkout soon ended up, the players took the court and company resumed as typical. The Cowboys won their 6th straight game 73-57. Later that night, Mitchell revealed unique assistant to the head coach Reed Vial the video, who saw capacity for something more. “I resembled,’ dude, we got to put that on the internet now
,'”he recalled.The decision to publish the video on social networks showed to be a wise one. The following Monday early morning, Mitchell shared the video on his individual X
account. Within 12 hours, the clip had over a million views throughout various social media platforms. It would generate millions more over the coming days.Felt the aura when we opened the app @McNeeseMBB( through @McNeeseMBB) pic.twitter.com/vlSYkZArwJ!.?.!— NCAA March Insanity (@MarchMadnessMBB )March 15, 2025″I didn’t believe anything of it, I simply believed it was a cool minute,”Khan stated. “Then Monday [Mitchell] posts the video and my phone starts exploding.”The college basketball world couldn’t get enough of Khan. Those who hurried to his
bio page on the McNeese athletics website happy in discovering his highlighted quote:”If they kept supervisor statistics for rebounding and wiping up wet areas on the court, I ‘d install Wilt Chamberlain numbers.”Khan’s following on Instagram, X and TikTok all skyrocketed.Vial quickly developed a design and printed Amir Khan Tee shirts at a regional shop. Khan’s e-mail was added to his website bio(along with the nickname”Aura “)as brands from across the nation called in to southwest Louisiana in search of possible partnerships with the viral supervisor. The senior sports management major has since inked deals with a number of business, including Insomnia Cookies and Buffalo Wild Wings.The paradox of Khan’s not likely virality? He’ll shoot it to you straight– he’s very little of a natural suitable for commercial work. “I’m a dreadful star, “Khan said.”I just understand how to be me, which’s it.”But it’s just him that his assorted promotional suitors want. Which is why on March 12, online ticket market TickPick’s very first college NIL offer was signed by a supervisor and not a player.https:// t.co/ wgTVxZsOJi pic.twitter.com/fFIp44telR!.?.!— TickPick(@TickPick )March 13, 2025 IT’S NOT THE very first time McNeese has used social networks to trigger online
buzz for its guys’s hoops program. It utilized a comparable method upon hiring Wade. Part of generating that momentum, however, indicated being willing to push the envelope when promoting the team on social media.When Wade got here, he missed out on the very first 10 games due to a suspension levied by the NCAA as part of a punishment for the Level 1 offenses that resulted in his dismissal as head coach of the LSU Tigers in 2022.”Call it what it is,”Wade told the New York Times
last season about his first season with the Cowboys.”There’s a factor we’re all at McNeese. “McNeese didn’t
shy away from Wade’s credibility. It embraced it. In December 2023, ahead of Wade’s very first game on the sidelines in Lake Charles, Louisiana, post-suspension, the team launched a video captioned” Willy The Kid is free”– a nod to renowned Wild West outlaw Billy the Kid– horse, saloon and all.Willy The Kid is complimentary #BayouBandits|#GeauxPokes pic.twitter.com/CvCFJODzrM!.?.!— McNeese Guys’s Basketball(@McNeeseMBB )December 11, 2023 “When it pertains to wanting to be nationally appropriate, you understand you need to do some of the important things that some people do not want to do,
“said Mitchell, who also recorded the Willy The Kid video.” We wished to accept the black hat. We know what happened in the past, it’s no secret. However we
wanted to embrace that, and we wanted to inform the college basketball world ‘we do not care. Will Wade is back. ‘”The post gathered over 700,000 views. The Cowboys haven’t reviewed the court or online. “We attempt to do things differently,” Vial said.” Due to the fact that we know if we do the same as everybody else, we’ll never get seen.”And while getting
seen is great, as Vial(or anybody around Lake Charles)will tell you, winning is even much better. McNeese has done a lot of that because employing Wade. The Cowboys ‘two
competition appearances under his tutelage mark the third and 4th in program history, the cherries on top of a general win-loss record that includes more than 55 accomplishments in 2 seasons.IT’S JUST AS well that McNeese has actually leaned into Wade’s credibility and the unlikely nature of him being the Cowboys coach– since he’s the reason Khan is a supervisor for the program in the very first place.Khan didn’t intend on ending up being a manager. After enrolling at McNeese, he took a mild interest in the basketball group, attending a couple of games as a sophomore as the Cowboys, the eighth-seeded hosts of the conference competition, made a quick underdog go to the Southland semifinals.Five days after McNeese’s conference tournament run ended, the Cowboys had a brand-new coach. Wade was back on the Louisiana college basketball scene. A lifelong LSU fan who “fell in love”with Wade’s teams in Baton Rouge, Khan’s interest in his own school’s program suddenly handled a new intensity. When McNeese’s brand-new staff began putting out feelers for manager functions, he was offered.”I wanted to work for him in
any method that I can,”Khan said.”One of my buddies sent me a X post that they had, saying they required student supervisors. He was like’We must do this; it would be truly enjoyable.’That’s when I chose to do it.
“There was no on-ramp to Khan’s brand-new gig assisting a coach he enjoyed a lot in his teenage days. Some nerves were unavoidable as he discovered himself immediately immersed in the whirlwind world of a college basketball program’s day-to-day operations. But the distance of his position to
Wade didn’t completely embeded in up until he stood in the Legacy Center’s home locker space on Dec. 13, 2023, listening as the coach offered his very first pregame speech as Cowboys coach ahead of an otherwise innocuous nonconference tilt with the Southern Miss Golden Eagles. “I saw a few of [Wade’s speeches] online at LSU,”Khan said.”However when I got to witness one in person I was like, ‘oh snap, man,
this is fantastic.'”However far in the background Khan may have begun, there’s little doubt as he finishes his second year as manager how immersed he is with the McNeese program. But what’s next for the Cowboys’not likely star? A more prominent role in McNeese’s walkouts was all however a given.In the team’s last regular-season game against Stephen F. Austin, the Cowboys walked out to Khan’s favored hype tune,”No Flockin,”by rap artist Kodak Black. According to Richards, all other future walkout tunes will come after assessment with Khan( whose personal taste is more Lil Wayne ).”I have actually been speaking to Amir. … I’m going to start sending him songs. It’s simply for like 20 seconds, he’s just got to know the tunes for like 20 seconds and then we’re going to head out there and just have fun,”Richards said.Other than walkout duties, however, it’s organization as usual for Khan as his school aims to bear down college basketball’s greatest stage.For Khan, fellow Cowboy supervisors Landry Donham, Mitchell Eder, Jake Forbes and Jordan Romero, and hundreds of other college basketball supervisors across the country, the gig is a full-time role that requires being on call 24/7. Early mornings on rebound duties as players carry out shoot drills. Late nights doing laundry after games. Practically anything that might be required on a given game day– and every day in between– can fall under a manager’s obligation. In Khan’s case, one of the more specific responsibilities assigned to him after taking the task was carrying the pregame boom box.No task is too huge or too small for managers, who fill all the spaces that include keeping a college basketball program running efficiently. Despite whatever heights his popularity might reach, Khan’s jobs will remain the very same. Khan with fellow Cowboy men’s basketball managers Jake Forbes, Landry Donham, Mitchell Eder and Jordan Romero. McNeese Sports BUT THEREIN LIES the essential to why Khan’s virality is so easily accepted by those around McNeese. The story itself is, well, storybook. He’s a native of Lake Charles, a senior who typically labors behind the scenes now getting the spotlight as his hometown school gets ready for a national closeup.
However he’s not obsessed with the tale. No matter how high social media views or fans climb, Khan stays genuine. “With someone that puts in the work with us and don’t get credit, when he’s having fun with us, it implies a lot to the group. It gives us another reason to want to do good,”Richards said.”The very best part of it, guy, is it’s all organic,”Vial stated.” Amir’s the same man.
“Asked about any prepare for changing or overemphasizing the Cowboys’walkouts going forward, Khan waves away the idea.”What got us here is just us being us,”he said. “We’re simply going to continue doing us.” When the Cowboys leave onto the court to deal with the fifth-seeded Clemson Tigers on Thursday, they’ll do so looking for history. McNeese guys’s basketball has actually never won an NCAA competition game in over 50 years of program history.Yet there is an experience to Khan and the Cowboys that influences self-confidence that the minute will not be too huge for them. After all, the only thing that’s changed about McNeese’s pregame entryway considering that the squad came out of the tunnel for its NCAA competition game last year versus the Gonzaga Bulldogs at Salt Lake City’s Delta Center is the popularity of the male holding the boom box.The opportunity might be distinct, however the regular as the Cowboys leave to satisfy it will remain simply that: routine.