Football Supplement | Manning picks off passes, picks up jock straps

In the interest of team chemistry, many athletes take great pains to keep from airing their dirty laundry in the locker room.

For the Penn football team, the formula is far simpler: Just give it to Jordan Manning.

The Quakers senior enters his third season as starting strong safety - and his second as assistant to the squad's althletic equipment administrator, a work-study position that leaves him in charge of the post-practice laundry load for the Red and Blue.

"It's just like it sounds: a dirty bin of football laundry," he said.

"I try not to think about it, really. If you thought about it, it would probably be too disgusting to handle."

After a season of fabric-softening tutelage under former defensive lineman Tom Stone, Manning secured the gig in earnest last fall.

In his role, for which he is now training sophomore wideout David Wurst, Manning dispenses detergent not only for his 100-plus teammates - a two-and-a-half hour task, by his estimate - but also for men's and women's track and men's lacrosse.

Mannings's teammates, naturally, have offered their unique brand of support.

"After practice, Jordan will want to get out of here," senior cornerback Tyson Maugle said.

"So he'll be yelling at everyone in the locker room saying, 'Last call for laundry!' And of course, everyone goes into super-slow motion at that point."

Of course, as Penn's third-leading tackler last season, Manning knows as much about the power toss as the power wash. A linebacker and running back in high school, Manning shifted to strong safety upon his arrival in West Philadelphia.

"I had to work some on my feet, playing man-to-man," he said. With time, though, "the game sort of slowed down, reading progressions got easier and you sort of expect what's coming now."

In particular, coach Al Bagnoli lauds Manning's "toughness and tenacity" as a run-stopping threat out of the secondary. And as a former workhorse out of the backfield, the senior brings a gift for shiftiness to the defensive side of the ball.

"Once he does get the ball in his hands, he's pretty dynamic," Bagnoli said. "He's a pretty complete player."

Perhaps no one has tracked the trajectory of Manning's career quite like Maugle, his classmate and comrade of the defensive backfield.

Though the pair never met before arriving as freshmen, Maugle and Manning matched up as high schoolers, their teams clashing as conference rivals in Central Pennsylvania.

"Our coaches were always saying, 'Watch out for this guy,'" Maugle said. "From day one [at Penn], he's been the guy who's the hardest hitter, who works the hardest."

This dedication, Maugle said, has carried over to Manning's off-field duties - leading to one comically disastrous episode.

As the cornerback remembers it, Manning had gone to Franklin Field at around 7 p.m. one night to get a jump on a couple of loads before the next morning.

A few hours later, Maugle received a call. Manning was locked in.

After fruitlessly scouring the grounds of Franklin for a possible way out, Manning eventually phoned Penn Police to inform them of his predicament.

"Thankfully, it happened to somebody with some level of common sense," joked athletic equipment administrator Fran Murray, now in his 31st season with the Quakers. "Some of my other work-study kids may have not been able to get out."

Empty stadiums aside, Manning insists his post will be in high demand once he forces his final turnover at Franklin Field: taking a diploma from Amy Gutmann.

"Everybody's trying to take the job when I leave," Manning said. "I get to hang out and watch TV basically."

At least one Quakers fixture, though, wants no part of the Red and Blue rinse cycle.

"I'm glad," Bagnoli admitted, "it's him instead of me."

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