Before the game can start, before the basketballs trip along the court, the lights must come on, the water bottles are filled and the towels are folded. Behind the scenes there is a person crafting the moments for the Mercer Island boys basketball that will come after the blow of a whistle.

Matthew Sexton, a senior this year at MIHS, has been creating those moments as the team’s manager, helping to make the Islanders’ season possible for the past five years. Mostly, he hopes people in the stands don’t notice him. He hopes they see the players and the game, but what he does is vital to that game getting underway.

“I guess it’s kind of a weird thing to say, but knowing that no one knows what I do,” said Sexton of what he enjoys about being the team’s manager. “Knowing the appreciation that the players have for me. It’s a secret kind of thing that no one really knows about. Everyone kind of sees me as the water boy that doesn’t do anything, but in reality it’s really vital to the players. They really do appreciate me and it’s nice that it happens. It’s also nice to see that I’m doing something and not getting noticed for it. It’s a lot of fun, knowing the players are getting taken care of.”

He began working with the team as an eighth-grader, when his older brother was a senior. That season, the team didn’t have a manager and his brother, then a captain, suggested the younger Sexton to then head coach Ed Pepple.

While Sexton used to play basketball, an injury took him out of the game and he focused on managing, something he’d done unofficially with his brother’s teams before 2008.

As the Islanders’ manager he essentially does what needs to be done to help the team.

“Mostly, it’s about instincts and seeing what happens and responding to it. The main stuff I do for practices are getting the table and fill up water bottles, set out gum and shoe cleaner and different stuff that the players might need that day,” he said. “I make sure the court is all set up, have the baskets down and the lights turned on. Making sure that the balls are out and the cones are out. During games I get towels and water bottles and fill everything up before games. I make sure at halftime that the gatorade cooler is all set out in the locker room and make sure they have pretty much everything they need. Whatever they might ask for, I get requests all the time for crazy things, but you have to follow through with it because it makes them happy. My biggest goal is if the players don’t have anything to worry about, then they can’t blame it on anything, they can only blame themselves.”

Sexton has been to every single game and practice in the last five years, save for two. When he was in eighth grade, coach Pepple told him, after he came to practice on his birthday, to go home. This year, again for his birthday, was the second in five years.

While he hopes to go into sports management at Washington State and would love to work with the men’s basketball program there as a manager, he’s focused on the season in front of him. While the Islanders blaze through the regular season, and will shortly begin the prep for the postseason, Sexton is also helping prep another member of the team — manager-in-training Ian Platou.

“Espen Platou’s little brother, his name is Ian, he is kind of my protégé right now. He’s looking at doing this, and we kind of had to find someone one. Last year Gavin was really worried about getting someone; he kind of realized how much I do and when I leave needing someone. We came upon Ian and he told Espen he was willing to do this, so that’s great. So far he’s enjoying it and hopefully he’ll have a lot of success. He’s actually a freshman this year,” said Sexton.

While this year a new face in the maroon blazer joins him on the bench, Sexton remembers what it was like that first season.

“I definitely have a strong memory of in 2008 when I was an eighth-grader, when we went to the state tournament at the Key Arena,” he said. “That was definitely a big moment in my life, being in that big situation the first year I’d ever done this. It was pretty nerve-wracking, but it was nice to be able to spend the time with such great guys and get to know them. That’s really all my memories; it’s not really the winning games or great shots or great plays, it’s building families over different years. Every single year I’d build a new family with these guys and that’s probably the thing I’m going to miss the most. The small things. The guys coming into practice and joking around — just all of those things.”

Of course, since 2008, things have changed for the program. The Islanders have a new head coach.

“The major thing was that it was really nice to get to know Gavin a lot better, because he was an assistant. It was  definitely sad to see Coach Pepple leave, I’d known him for a couple of years, but really got to know him that year. He is a great guy, he was really fun to work with, always a character,” said Sexton. “It’s definitely nice to get to know Gavin and see him blossom as he’s really stepped in. He’s trying to fill big shoes and I know coach Pepple would agree with me in saying that he’s really done it with grace and handled the players very well.”

Sexton has seen what it’s like working with all variety of teams, including professionals after working with the Seattle Storm last summer. He said basically he does the same with the WNBA team as he does with the Islanders, but finds there is one perk to working with a women’s team.

“I always say that it’s nice because working with the girls, you give them their stuff and it smells good and you get it back and it smells even better. When you give it to the guys it smells good, but when you get it back it smells horrible,” said the manager.

Sexton will continue his duties this season as the Islanders host Juanita on Friday, Jan. 27, at 8 p.m.