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MLS Colorado Rapids

Colorado Rapids Equipment Manager Brandy Lay Is Living the Dream

December 3, 2014 - Major League Soccer (MLS)
Colorado Rapids News Release


Fate determined early on that Brandy Lay would have a career in sports. The only question was which one of many possible roles he would play with a professional sports team - video journalist, PR man, team travel coordinator, or his present job ... equipment manager for the Rapids. Truth be told, he's done them all.

From his days growing up in Loveland, Colo. (the town, not the ski area, he's quick to point out), Brandy played sports and followed all the state's professional teams. "Since I'm a native, I guess I always wanted to stay here and do sports," says the 44-year-old Lay, who as a youngster dreamed about producing highlights for NFL Films.

So intent was he on a sports media career that when he attended tiny Bethany College in Lindsborg, Kansas, he had to create (and get approved) his own course of study. Determination and making the most of opportunities make Brandy Lay a living example of the old adage - you never get anything in this world without asking for it.

The likeable, professional Rapids kit man has lived the sporting life many times over in his young life - from the private jet, overnight flights of the Colorado Rockies baseball team, to handling reporters who covered the Rockies as assistant director of media relations, to helping put together a late-night sports video package while working as an intern at KWGN, Channel 2 in Denver.

Since he was a boy, sports has been a big part of his life. He played them all as a kid, including soccer, but by the time he got to high school he was concentrating on basketball. "It was silly, really, that I was so into basketball, because I was this 6-foot-2 post player."

By his senior year at Thompson Valley High School, the lure of football was strong so he went out and made the team, enjoying a stellar year playing defensive back. It was good enough that the next fall he was off to rural Kansas, where he played for Bethany, then an NAIA school. "Our football coach at Thompson Valley knew their football coach," he said, explaining the connection with the Kansas school. "There were no full rides there, but I did get some help on an academic scholarship."

Internship with Denver's Channel 2

In the summer of 1993, right before his senior year of college, he landed an internship with Channel 2 in Denver. "I worked with the anchors, looking at video for highlights, going out with cameramen, doing interviews - all of it sports. That was the first year of the Colorado Rockies, who were playing at Mile High Stadium, back when they were drawing 65,000 to 70,000 per game."

Following his graduation from college in '94, he was flipping burgers in Loveland when he got a call about an internship with the Rockies, which included working every day on various projects whether the team was at home or out of town. The internship led to his first full-time job out of college with a branch of the Rockies' broadcast department, the group that handled in-game entertainment (scoreboard and video operations).

"One of the anchors at Channel 2 knew the director of in-game entertainment," said Brandy. "This is the department that handles public address, the organist, camera work, graphics, video highlights, displays of balls and strikes, etc."

When the assistant director of public relations decided to leave the Rockies, a position opened and Brandy, with his background working for Channel 2, was in. It was a position he held for two years - writing news releases, putting together statistics and servicing the media.

Traveling with the Rockies

The same thing happened in 1999 when the director of team travel position opened up. "I threw my hat in the ring and was lucky enough to get hired," he recalls. "I was only 29 years old - and maybe it was because I came pretty cheap that they gave me the job, but I was glad to have it."

For the next two years, Brandy handled the planning and execution of every aspect of team travel for the Colorado Rapids. From spring training he went everywhere the team went. It was a whirlwind job that consisted of hiring equipment trucks, buses, airline charters, booking team hotels, dispensing meal money and handing personal requests for players.

With a change of general managers and some restructuring within the club, Brandy had to seek a new opportunity.

"I bounced around with a couple of jobs that were not careers before I landed a good job with Comcast as an account executive. It was a job I held for seven years. It was through a friend in the Rapids front office that I learned of an opening with Kroenke Sports and Entertainment as kit man for the Rapids. The lure of getting back in sports and being on the road with a team again was too great to pass up.

"Again, I was in the right place at the right time and that's how it worked out. They interviewed me on a Wednesday and by the following Sunday I was on a plane for Hawaii and pre-season training."

He joined the Rapids in February of 2012 and is just about to complete his third year with the club.

Brandy credits his love of sports with the influence of his father, Daryl Lay, an investigator for the Colorado Real Estate Commission. (The rest of the family includes his mother, Barbara and younger sister Kelley).

"My dad loved sports, had season tickets and we went to Broncos games together. He took me to my first hockey game, baseball game, and basketball game. We did everything, from playing catch in the front yard, and later he drove eight hours to watch me play at Bethany. It was from him that I got the love."

Loving life on the road

The appeal of working in professional sports is apparent on Brandy's face as he discusses his job.

"I love the travel and the game day experience," he says. "Whether it's at home or on the road, anything leading up to or coming down from game day is the highlight. Five straight days of training is monotonous, but packing for a road trip or anything behind the scenes (pre-game locker room, being on the bench for the games, being close to the action), that's the tradeoff for the long hours."

While he had considerable experience around Major League Baseball, there were some adjustments coming over to soccer.

Long season, crazy hours

"I didn't understand the length of the season (10 1/2 months, including pre-season training, six days a week, crazy hours). From February through October, I usually get one day a week off, but during the month of February, it's work seven days a week."

Equipment guys always have something they are getting ready for. And a lot of the getting ready involves doing laundry. "About three hours a day," says Brandy, of his daily routine around washers and dryers. "We have laundry after every training and after games. During pre-season training, especially when there are two-a-day workouts, we sometimes have to do laundry at least twice a day."

His experience with baseball draws some sharp contrasts with his current work in soccer.

"We're lucky in soccer because, even though MLS is growing on the American landscape, the players have somewhat smaller egos than baseball players. You'll find that soccer players are a lot closer to normal people than you might think. There are exceptions to that, but most are good human beings, the kind of people you'd like to hang out with and have a beer once in a while.

"Baseball players are different in that they make astronomical salaries. We didn't have any bad apples in the Rockies' clubhouse - we were lucky in that respect. But it's a different lifestyle; the players can afford to throw the clubhouse attendant a $200 tip. The players were incredibly good to me. We traveled by charter aircraft. The bus pulls right up to the plane. You are in a reconfigured 737 jet with first class-like seating, catered meals etc."

Soccer players also approach their craft much differently than baseball players, says Brandy. "After a baseball game you'll always find a couple of players who go out on any given night. But soccer players are much more diligent about how they treat their bodies. Hardly any of our guys (on the Rapids) ever drink. They take great care of themselves and they take their jobs seriously.

"In baseball, there's that old stereotype of the smoking baseball player who eats fatty food and stays out late. Beer and baseball goes hand-in-hand. And while the same can be said of soccer players through the years, it's certainly different with Rapids players."

Chris Zitterbart, a critical team member

Brandy is quick to point out that his job would be impossible without the help of Chris Zitterbart (pictured right), who started as a Rapids intern and has just finished his first full year with the club. "He blew away the performances of every other intern we've had here. I kind of fought to get him here full time and without him, I think I'd have to think about retirement."

Brandy Lay's life is a symphony of fast living, frequent travel, loads of laundry, packing and unpacking. But he loves it to the core.

"The turnover in sports reminds all of us who work with professional teams that we are all on the clock, so to speak," he says. "There are a billion guys who want to work in the industry and many will do it for the lowest possible salary. Realizing my dream of working within sports with two different professional sports organizations, without having to leave my home state, is probably my proudest professional accomplishment."

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