Kansas University freshman J.R. Giddens considers himself lucky to be able to work with a basketball legend like Danny Manning every single day.

“Danny Manning is the biggest help in the world to me,” Giddens said of the former KU All-American, who serves as a counselor to KU’s players in his role as director of student-athlete development/team manager.

“I love him. I’m so glad he’s here because he tells me something new every day. He helps you not only with his knowledge of things that happen on the court, but off the court with a lot of stuff. The guy is like a basketball encyclopedia. He knows everything.”

Manning, KU’s all-time leading scorer and the 1988 national player of the year, doesn’t profess to be all-knowing, but he soaked up a lot of knowledge during his just-concluded 15-year NBA career.

“He’s a guy all our players respect and they certainly have learned from his experiences,” said KU coach Bill Self, who pulled a major coup in landing Manning on his first Jayhawk staff.

Mr. Versatility

Manning has impressed about everybody in KU’s program as a hoops Renaissance man, a jack of all trades.

“I’d say ‘veteran’ is the best term to describe him,” said KU media relations director Mitch Germann, who said he “loves being around Danny,” on road trips. “Being so successful in college and the NBA, he knows so many things.”

Like?

“How to treat people, how to find the right restaurant, how to tip the right guy,” Germann said. “We might be getting off the bus and he’ll tell the players, ‘Watch your step, there’s ice out there.’

Danny Manning, right, watches Kansas University freshman J.R. Giddens dunk at practice. Manning joined coach Bill Self's staff this season after a 15-year NBA career.

“He will make sure the bags are taken care of and the food. Nobody else on that bus played at the highest level for 15 years. He has insight into so many things. He’s been part of success, failure, injuries. Look at Shannon. He can even give Shannon advice on coming back from an injury.”

Team manager Shannon O’Connor last week had ACL surgery, something Manning had on both knees following his KU career.

“He can talk to everybody about something,” Germann said.

Spreading knowledge around

For his part, Manning enjoys his one-on-one dealings with the players.

“I talk to a lot of guys a lot. I wouldn’t call it counseling,” Manning said with a shrug. “I call it opening lines of communication and having guys talk to me, and I ask a lot of questions also. It’s truly rewarding to see guys get better and start to understand our philosophy and the team concept.”

Still in playing shape, the 37-year-old Manning isn’t allowed to do any on–court coaching — KU has three full-time assistants — but he is allowed to play in scrimmage situations at practice and sometimes does.

“He still has a lot of game,” said KU student assistant and former Jayhawk Brett Ballard, who also scrimmages some with the Jayhawks. “He has a great feel for the game, more feel for the game than anybody I know and he’s 6-foot-11.”

He also has a feel for human relationships as Ballard has discovered.

“Danny is very humble and down to earth,” Ballard said. “In our coaches’ locker room there was only one locker left between the two of us. I figured he’d take it and I could change wherever I could find a spot, but Danny said, ‘Brett, let’s share the locker. You can put your stuff in here.’

“That’s little stuff … it’s not a big deal, but he was nice enough to do that.”

Future undecided

Manning is using this school year as sort of an apprenticeship, to see if he’d like to pursue coaching for a living.

“There’s a lot more for me to see,” said Manning, undecided at making coaching a career calling. “I don’t know what coaches go through when they go out recruiting in the summers. There’s a lot for me to learn. I’ve only been on this job a few months. Right now I’m learning. That’s the bottom line. I’m learning, just trying to fit in and help out where I can.”

He’d be a good coach, according to those around him.

“I think he’d be a great coach because of his personality,” junior guard Aaron Miles said. “Being that he was such a great player … great players sometimes have a hard time coaching because they expect so much, but I think with his personality and his style, he could make it work because he understands what a player is going through on and off the court.”

Self, who talked to Manning about possibly filling a coaching spot last spring and summer before creating a job for Manning, agreed.

“My gut hunch is yes (he will someday coach),” Self said of Manning, who was born and raised in North Carolina, but moved to Lawrence for his senior year of high school and has made Lawrence his home base ever since.

“But my gut hunch is still some time away. He has operated the last 15 years on somebody else’s schedule. I think he’s enjoying operating on his own schedule now. Even though he is on our schedule, it’s not like he has to be away from his family so much.

“There’s a lot of bonuses in being an NBA guy, but the one negative is you spend so much time away from your family.”

Traveling man

Manning hated long spells away from his family while playing for seven different NBA teams. He admits his schedule this year has been hectic, but not nearly as hectic as the NBA.

“Eighty-two games,” Manning said of the grueling pro schedule. “I’m around my family a lot more now.”

Family matters at Kansas.

“I talk to my dad and he’ll say to me, ‘Do you ever talk to Danny Manning?’ I say, ‘Every day,”’ Giddens said. “I know he (dad) likes that.”

That’s because Manning usually knows what to say at any time, any place.

“I think,” Self said, “he is as good an ambassador for the university than the university has ever had.”