WINONA LAKE, Ind. - With the first tipoff on the morning of March 14 at the Manahan Orthopaedic Capital Center, the 2018 NCCAA National Basketball Championships will officially begin at Grace College.

Hosting a national tourney involves months of planning, top-class facilities, comprehensive community support and a dependable workforce.

Every year, many of Grace's most visible workers are students. Ten students sit silently and work diligently at the tournament, staffing vital roles on the scorers' table.

These students, who work in Grace's Sports Information Department, perform integral functions to make the tournament flow. Each of the 24 games during the four-day tournament requires statisticians, scoreboard and shot clock operators as well as a scorebook manager.

While some roles, like public address announcer (performed primarily this year by Paul DeRenzo and Jacob Vickers) and scorekeeper (Aaron Minglin) are done by seasoned veterans, the majority of the courtside table is staffed by the 10 SID students.

One of those students is a senior from Hagerstown, Md. Cole Helman is in his third year working under Josh Neuhart on the SID team. 

The witty, hard-working Helman is excited to tackle his third and final NCCAA tournament at Grace this week. He, along with the other nine student workers, staff up to 10 hours per day during the tournament while also balancing class, homework and other responsibilities.

"I look forward to the NCCAA tournament every year because it's a fun week full of basketball, and it's a chance to spend long hours bonding with our team," Helman said. "It's cool being part of a tournament that brings so many schools from all over the country into our arena."

While many colleges use on-campus employees to staff their scorers' tables, Grace has successfully relied on this rotating stable of SID students for the past decade. 

Grace is entering its 10th consecutive year hosting a national basketball tournament, and the SID students have sat courtside at the scorers' table for all 10 years.

The school has received high remarks at the tournament from competing schools, ranging from California to New York to Texas, because of the quality of these students' work.

"The demand on our SID students is very high due to so many games in a short amount of time, but our staff does great work every year," said Grace Director of Athletics Chad Briscoe. "Josh Neuhart does an excellent job working with our students who have a passion for the behind-the-scenes work during the tournament. Their attention to detail creates a fluid and seamless experience from game to game throughout the week."

Several of the SID students in recent years have found full-time work in collegiate athletics upon graduation, due in many ways from their experiences at Grace and the NCCAA tournament.

Helman, who graduates in May, is poised to become the next to springboard from Grace into a working role in athletics. He has received multiple job inquiries and several job offers already in the field of athletic communications.

"We have a fun experience working the tournament, but this job really is a service to showcase the student-athletes. It helps fuel my passion for working in sports and helps me gain valuable experience for my career moving forward," Helman said.

Students joining Helman on the scorers' table this year include: Grant Ringler, Justin Perry, Zach Foster, Zach Elliott, Dan Sauers, Isaac Stuckey, Abbey Naibauer, Conner Bates and Nicholas Foster.