On an ASU football team hit hard this season by missed field goals, blocked punts and extra point miscues, there was still at least one specialist who did his job with consistency, precision and all-out hustle.
While fans might grumble about senior Thomas Weber’s kicks or linemen missing blocking assignments, the chants and cheers for Mike Crowley, better known as ASU’s “tee guy,” rang out at every home game.
“He’s an integral part of the game day experience,” said sophomore and football season ticket holder Matt Wittenberg. “He gets the crowd into the game.”
After each kickoff, Crowley sprints across the field, scooping up the tee and cutting back toward the sideline in one fluid motion. Along the way fans serenade him with a chorus of “Tee Guy! Tee Guy!” It’s a small role, but one that Crowley said he appreciates and enjoys immensely.
“For seven or eight seconds, I get to be the star of the show,” Crowley said. “It’s humbling.”
This season marks Crowley’s 20th year with ASU football. He got his start as a student manager during the 1990 season after an ASU representative recruiting a football player at Carl Hayden High School in Phoenix noticed Crowley acting as a manger for the high school team and asked if he’d like to do the same job at ASU.
The problem was that Crowley was wearing a UA t-shirt in support of his older brother, who went to UA at the time.
“[The recruiter] said to me, ‘The only thing you have to do is change your shirt, and you can be a manager,’” Crowley recalled.
As a manager, the fun of getting to interact with the team and see things up close were Crowley’s most important incentives, to the point where he had to be continually reminded to collect his pay. That same sense of joy kept Crowley with the team as a volunteer even when he left ASU after a few semesters to go to Scottsdale Community College and it has kept him coming back for 20 years.
“Fun is my paycheck,” he said.
He started his tee retrieving job during the 1994 season. The first few years he would do a flip across the sideline after collecting the tee, but after never landing on his feet, he switched to his trademark wind sprint. He said his goal is to keep everyone entertained and light-hearted, a mission that extends to the sidelines, where he cracks jokes with the players and coaches to try to take the pressure off of their jobs.
Equipment manager Paul Lopez, who works with Crowley on game days, says the humor comes in many forms, including movie character impersonations.
“He pulls out a good Forrest Gump impression,” Lopez said.
Crowley himself copped to the jokester role.
“I’m a little bit of a comedian,” Crowley acknowledged. “Anything I can do to lighten the mood a bit is a good thing.”
Crowley works full-time as a speech pathology assistant and said the job with ASU helps him let loose a little and relive some stress as well.
Every season, Crowley became more and more an institution at ASU football games, until he reached iconic status during the 2002-2003 season. At the time ASU was making a serious run at the Rose Bowl and one game he saw fans holding a sign that read “I smell roses.”
“But then they turned it around, and on the back it said ‘We love Tee Guy,’” Crowley said, still seeming somewhat bewildered. “And the next week they had Tee Guy t-shirts.”
He said he doesn’t know when he’ll leave his job as “Tee Guy,” but doesn’t think it will be anytime soon.
“At one time I said, ‘Well, I’d like to do this until I’m 40,’” Crowley said. “But I [just turned] 40, and there’s no way I want to stop.”
Jacob Wipf is a freelance reporter contributing to The State Press. Reach the reporter at jacob.wipf@asu.edu
