Top gear: Arizona football's equipment ace keeps the Wildcats on track

The Star is continuing its series, “Behind the Bear Down,” which focuses on five glue pieces of Arizona football on a weekly basis in the fall — most of them year-round. The fifth and final installment is spotlighting Sean Kenneally, Arizona’s director of equipment operations.

When Arizona football begins preseason training camp in July, UA director of equipment operations Sean Kenneally arrives to the Lowell-Stevens Football Facility at 5 a.m.

Kenneally’s first task is “making sure there’s no laundry left over from the night before,” he said.

Next, “I’ll get all of the players’ practice jerseys, practice pants and put them in their lockers,” Kenneally added.

“We have these things called ‘loops’ and they have compressions, underwear, socks and all of that kinda of stuff,” he said. “I’ll make sure they have everything they need for practice. I’ll go through all of their shoulder pads and helmets and make sure it’s clean. If a screw gets popped off, I’ll make sure that’s fixed.”

For the Arizona coaches, Kenneally and his team of 15 equipment managers prepare laundry, footballs, field equipment, hand shields, pads, sleds, sunflower seeds, chewing gum, “everything they could possibly need for a practice.”

“Pretty much everything you see on the sideline for a practice or games, we’re responsible for,” said Kenneally. “I’m definitely a problem solver. A lot gets thrown at us every single day, but we’re here for the players and we’re here for the coaches.”

Kenneally and Arizona’s equipment team work around the clock to provide and repair equipment for 105 football players “65-70 coaches and full-time staff members.”

“It’s not just me, it takes a team to get all of this stuff done for our players and coaches,” said Kenneally.

The month of training camp preceding the season has two-a-days, so the Arizona equipment crew does laundry in the afternoon from the morning practice. Kenneally will spend his downtime ordering equipment from Nike and then preparing for the evening practice.

“After practice, it’s making sure all of that laundry gets done,” he said. “During training camp, we’re doing a couple hundred pounds of laundry every single day. It never stops for us.”

Some people struggle doing their own laundry at home. Imagine doing laundry that weighs just as much as Genesis Smith or Dalton Johnson on a daily basis.

Kenneally’s day wraps up around 11 p.m., and then he’s back at the facility six hours later. And he wouldn’t want it any other way.

Kenneally, a fan of Boston sports, grew up in Massachusetts and graduated from Andover High School, where he played football and basketball. The father of one of his friends was a wide receivers coach for the Houston Texans. When Kenneally visited, he was granted access to the Texans’ equipment room.

“I just found it so fascinating, all of the different cleats and gloves and helmets and stuff like that,” Kenneally said. “Once I saw that, I was hooked on the idea of equipment and being a student manager. I didn’t know it would turn into this, but it’s been awesome to be around the program longterm and be around the coaches and student-athletes.”

Kenneally sent letters to five football programs about becoming a student manager in 2018: Arizona, Kansas, Arizona State, Oklahoma State and Oregon.

“I knew I wanted to work in sports, so I wrote a letter to every equipment manager that I wanted to go school at, and the U of A was the only school to respond,” Kenneally said. “I was like, ‘Welp, I’m going to Tucson.’ I love it here. I never left and it’s been an awesome opportunity.”

Kenneally was a student manager at Arizona from 2018-22, then became a graduate assistant at ASU and a volunteer equipment manager for the Kansas City Chiefs at the Super Bowl in Glendale in 2023. Kenneally returned to the UA in 2023 as the program’s assistant director of equipment and was promoted to his current role last July. His favorite Arizona football uniform combination is the white helmet with a Navy blue face mask, Navy blue jersey and white pants.

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“I don’t think it gets any more classic than that for the Wildcats,” Kenneally said.

Arizona changed up its helmet decals several times last year, but “we got a lot of thumbs up” on the “cactus logo” decals. Arizona’s iconic cactus logo, which is primarily associated with the UA men’s basketball program, was recently re-added to the McKale Center floor and is now a helmet option in the EA Sports College Football 25 video game.

In addition to the aforementioned responsibilities, Kenneally coordinates the travel schedule for Arizona’s equipment truck for road games. The Wildcats load up 16,000 pounds of equipment into a semi-truck throughout the week and then haul it to their destination about one or two days before kickoff.

“It takes about a week in between games to pack the truck if we’re going on a road trip,” Kenneally said. “Typically after the game, we’ll sort through the laundry and get the stains out of the jerseys. Once it’s processed, then we get it packed up and ready to go.”

Some road trips are longer than others, especially now that Arizona is in the Big 12. Last season, Arizona trekked to Orlando to face UCF. Arizona Stadium is just over 2,000 miles away from FBC Mortgage Stadium. Arizona’s equipment truck left on a Tuesday and arrived in Orlando on the Friday before the game, “so that was quite the adventure for us.”

“It takes quite a bit of packing and preparation throughout the week to get it ready,” Kenneally said. “After the game, we only have about an hour to get everything loaded back on the truck.

“That was a bit of a crazy trip. Not a lot of sleep that week, but we got everything done. It was a rain game, so we packed extra rain jackets. Players needed extra gloves, because their gloves got wet. We’re prepared for any situation, rain, shine or snow. We pack stuff just in case it’s going to be 90 degrees or 15 degrees. We always pack rain stuff. Every week is a different challenge, but we’re prepared for anything.”

Since Kenneally first started in 2018, “it’s been cool to see everything evolve” under the three different coaching regimes he’s been a part of. Equipment has advanced, too, like helmets. Each Arizona football player will have a helmet tailored to the dimensions of their head with an app courtesy of Riddell. Each player will wear a cap that 3D scans their head, “then Riddell will build out a helmet customizable to that player,” Kenneally said.

Every year in August, Kenneally has “about $1 million to play with, so it’s fun to get shopping during our Nike window,” he said. Kenneally’s Nike order will be shipped to Tucson just under a year later. Arizona uses around 1,000 compressions shorts every year.

“I’ll pick out gloves, uniforms and apparel, and I meet with Nike multiple times a year to pick out what kind of products we want to order, what’s on the gloves, the different jersey options that we have,” he said. “It’s an extensive process and it usually takes about a year to design and order everything.”

There’s some equipment that is shipped to Tucson at a moment’s notice, like Arizona’s “No Fefe” shirts they wore to honor quarterbacks coach Lyle Moevao, whose mother died before the Wildcats beat 10th-ranked Utah in Salt Lake City. “No fefe,” which is Samoan for “no fear,” was a mantra instilled in Moevao by his mother. Arizona contacted Nike for “No Fefe” shirts that were worn by players and coaches during the game.

“We were able to get a shirt turned around quickly for our guy Lyle,” Kenneally said. “It’s something bigger than football.”

Getting to work with the players and coaches has been the most fulfilling component of the job, Kenneally said.

“They make such an impact on me every single,” Kenneally said. “I’ve gotten to know them and their personalities, what they like, what they don’t like. Being around them is so fun. ... Those guys put a smile on my face, getting to work with them. We have a great group of student-athletes that I get to work with every single day. That’s the funnest part of the job, just getting to know all of these people.”