Halfway through the first quarter of the Spurs’ final game of the regular season, Stephon Castle makes a free throw, and the Frost Bank Center erupts with cheers.
After the Denver Nuggets inbound the ball and move down the court, everyone’s attention shifts to the opposite hoop.
That’s when Juan-Alberto Garcia springs into action.
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As quickly as he can, Garcia pushes a mop around the paint, making sure the free-throw and lane lines are dry and free from sweat. NBA players perspire a lot during the game, and that perspiration ends up on the court during almost every play, especially when they line up for free throws, or fall and hit the ground. It has to constantly be cleaned to prevent players from slipping and falling.
After this particular cleanup mission, Garcia tucks the mop back into its place behind the basket, then returns to his own designated spot, a painted box on the baseline.
He’ll have a chance to watch the game for a bit — until the next time someone takes a spill and hits the ground, when he’ll be ready to wipe the court again.
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Garcia, 27, is one of a dozen “team attendants” for the Spurs — the formal name for the job that includes mopping sweat off the court during games, loading and unloading luggage, stocking locker rooms and doing endless loads of laundry, washing, drying and folding hundreds of towels every night.
Team attendant Tyson Coleman runs off the court after wiping sweat from the floor during the San Antonio Spurs’ 139-120 win over the Dallas Mavericks at Frost Bank Center on April 10.
Sam Owens/San Antonio Express-News
It’s a job that goes largely unseen unless something goes wrong — if someone slips on a wet spot on the court, or reaches for a towel that isn’t there.
“If no one notices you, then you’re doing your job correctly,” said Tyson Coleman, 24, who is in his second season as an attendant.
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But for Coleman, Garcia and their coworkers, it’s a job that lets them be a part of the team they grew up cheering for — and one they’ll gladly do behind the scenes, late at night in quiet corners of the arena, on top of their full-time jobs, if it means they get to be part of the Spurs team.
Just a ‘Spurs-crazy San Antonian’
The attendants arrive early before each home game — typically at least three hours before tip-off.
For most of them, that means coming straight from their regular full-time jobs. Garcia works at USAA, and Coleman is an elementary school physical education teacher in Gonzales. A few of their coworkers are still in high school, while the most senior attendant has been in the job for more than 25 years.
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One of their first tasks — and one that will continue until their night ends eight or more hours later — is preparing hundreds of towels for the game, so any time a player needs one, a fresh towel is ready.
Tucked away in a corner of the Frost Bank Center behind the visiting team’s weight room, the attendants man a large washer and dryer and fold bins full of towels to bring out to the court, and throughout the game, they’ll run a steady stream of used ones back off the court to wash and fold again.
Other items on the pre-game checklist include unloading the visiting team’s luggage when they arrive, stocking locker rooms with supplies and setting up coolers, ice packs and hot packs in their designated places behind the teams’ benches.
When the teams take the court, the attendants are on hand to catch rebounds and shots and pass the balls back to the players, a chance to interact directly with the Spurs stars.
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Team attendant Juan-Alberto Garcia, right, stands beside San Antonio Spurs player Carter Bryant before the Spurs’ regular-season finale against the Denver Nuggets at Frost Bank Center on April 12.
Sam Owens/San Antonio Express-News
Team attendant Juan-Alberto Garcia, left, talks to Spurs players Julian Champagnie and Carter Bryant as they warm up before the Spurs’ regular-season finale against the Denver Nuggets at Frost Bank Center on April 12.
Sam Owens/San Antonio Express-News
Over the course of 82 games each season, they build up relationships with the players, Garcia said, chatting with them and other Spurs staff members about “anything but basketball” to keep the mood light on the court.
“They talk to us normally. They make us feel really welcomed,” Garcia said. “We’ve built really cool relationships with a lot of these players.”
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A casual joke with Spurs forward Harrison Barnes during one of those warmups led to what is now one of the highlights of each shift.
“Harrison and I, we joke around, we talk to each other, and at some point, I think I talked smack to him,” Garcia said. “He said ‘OK, you try to stop me.’”
That turned into a drill they repeat before each game.
“I’m just a typical Spurs-crazy San Antonian that’s trying to stop Harrison Barnes, an NBA player, from scoring,” Garcia said.
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He’s won that drill once so far this season — a badge of honor for the lifelong Spurs fan in his fifth year with the team.
Garcia grew up in San Antonio, and can still rattle off the exact seats he sat in at his first Spurs game: section 210, row 14, seats 19 and 20 with his dad during the 2006 Western Conference semi-finals against the Dallas Mavericks.
He played basketball as a kid, and his love for the sport survived even when he didn’t make the cut for the team at Marshall High School. He became a team manager there, then again in college at University of Texas San Antonio, where he met the former coworker who ultimately helped him get the job with the Spurs.
Coleman, 24, also grew up playing basketball, and watching as much as he could. Raised just outside San Antonio in Seguin, he was also a diehard Spurs fan, and jumped at the chance to work for the team. Now, everyone from his grandmother to his elementary school students tell him they watch for him during game broadcasts, and he takes pride in giving them a closer connection to the team they love.
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Team attendant Tyson Coleman tosses basketballs to Denver Nuggets players as they warm up before a game against the San Antonio Spurs at Frost Bank Center on April 12.
Sam Owens/San Antonio Express-News
‘It’s very cool’
Among the attendants’ many tasks, mopping the court during games is their favorite, both said.
During games, they each sit in designated spots behind the baselines, careful to keep their feet “inside the box” to avoid potentially tripping a wayward player.
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“You don’t want to be that team where a ref or a player gets hurt or something, because they rely on that box to know their safe space, where their feet can go and everything,” Garcia said.
He’s had only one collision, when a player made a diving save, sending the ball back in bounds before sliding into Garcia’s box and crashing into his ribs.
Coleman is in his second season, and has avoided contact so far — though he’s had some close calls where he had to get off the court quickly.
“There’s been a couple of instances while I’m out there mopping and then a steal or fast break will happen, and I’ve just got to boot it out of there,” he said.
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One of those moments was captured on camera: in a game against the Nuggets, Keita Bates-Diop stole the ball and was heading for the hoop while Garcia was still mopping beneath it. He had to hustle off the court as quickly as he could, trying to outrun a 6-foot-8 player going full speed — a feat that didn’t go unnoticed.
“And a great effort by the ball boy to get out of the way. He turned the jets on,” broadcaster Sean Elliott said.
“A hero moment for this kid,” Michelle Beadle replied in the clip.
The key to the job is staying aware of their surroundings, they said, and resisting the urge to get too caught up in watching the action.
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“If they’re on the other side of the floor, I’ll find myself watching a little more, but when they’re on my side, I’m kind of watching low, just trying to watch the ground, survey everything and make sure no one’s falling down,” Coleman said.
“As a fan, for both of us, it’s very cool,” Garcia said. “But we take off that hat of being a fan and put on the hat of being the best mopper and preventing our guys from getting hurt and from slipping.”
‘Always a great day’
On the sidelines, they’ve been instructed to remain neutral. The No.1 rule, Garcia said, is to not react to any of the plays.
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Occasionally, though, they slip up and their excitement breaks through.
When Victor Wembanyama dunked over opposing player Draymond Green in a game against the Warriors this season, just a few feet from where Coleman stood ready to mop, he couldn’t contain himself. Footage of the moment shows him pumping his arms and starting to cheer before covering his mouth and regaining composure.
Garcia said he had a similar moment in March, when the Spurs rallied from a 25-point deficit to beat the Clippers. As the arena exploded in noise around him, he was fighting to keep his reaction contained.
When Devin Vassell made a three-pointer to put the Spurs ahead, “I had never felt something like that on the court, ever,” Garcia said. “It felt like something special’s brewing here. It was a teaser of what it’s going to be like in the playoffs.”
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After the cheering stops, and the crowds have gone home, the attendants are at the Frost Bank Center for a few more hours after each game — loading up the visiting team’s luggage, washing the Spurs’ jerseys and carefully hanging them to dry and, once again, washing several hundred sweaty towels, then folding them carefully to make sure everything is ready for the next game.
They’re hoping to keep doing that as long as possible — this spring, if the Spurs make a deep playoff run, and for many more seasons to come.
Sure, they have dreams of maybe, someday, moving up in the organization, but neither plans to leave behind the mops anytime soon.
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“I’ll do this for as long as I can, as long as they’ll allow me to,” Coleman said, praising the environment, his relationships with the other attendants, and the camaraderie with everyone from arena security up to the players and coaches. That makes it more than worth it, even when he has an early morning at school after a late Spurs game.
“Every time I go home after a game, I’m just reflecting on the day, and it’s just always a great day,” he said. “I just love the feeling, and as long as I can have that feeling, as long as they allow me, I’ll definitely gladly take it.”