Sugar Bowl

High School Teammates From New Orleans Give Back to College Footbal

by Ted Lewis for the Allstate Sugar Bowl

[This story originally appeared in the Official Game Program for the 2024 Allstate Sugar Bowl.]

As much as they might have liked to, Warde Manuel and Rod West, long-time best friends from New Orleans, never got to sit next to each other during their time on the College Football Playoff (CFP) Selection Committee. Perhaps the powers-that-be were aware of what might happen if the Brother Martin High School classmates teamed up.

“I guess they thought we would have been cutting up worse than we probably did anyway,” West said. “Sometimes we’ll argue just for the fun of it.”

Usually it’s about who has the greater football program – Michigan, where Manuel played after his days as a Crusader, or Notre Dame, where West, now group president of Utility Operations for New Orleans-based Entergy, played. Manuel is now the director of athletics at Michigan. West likes to rub it in that the Fighting Irish won three of their four meetings when the two were in college with Manuel countering that if he hadn’t missed his senior season with a neck injury they’d be even.

“They’re both great places, but they’re different,” Manuel said.

Now that West’s three-year term has ended, the only committee members who were high school teammates in the CFP’s 10-year history will have to find other ways to get together, as they have since graduating from Brother Martin in 1986.

That makes Manuel, who has another year to serve, a little melancholy.

“We don’t get to see each other very often,” he said. “So those times have been special. It gave us time to talk about football and things other than football.”

But not at the expense of doing less than due diligence during the meetings which are held at a suburban Dallas hotel on Mondays and Tuesdays over the final six weeks of the regular season before the final selection on conference championship weekend.

The committee system replaced the combination of polls and computer rankings used during the 16-year BCS era and will continue when the playoffs expand to 12 teams next year.

Unlike other college sports, the selection committee does just that – selects the Top 25 teams with the top four going to the semifinals, which this year includes the Allstate Sugar Bowl.

Since its start, the Selection Committee has been made up of administrators, athletic directors, former players and head coaches, and media members. The combination makes for some pretty lively meetings. But they are never contentious.

CFP executive director Bill Hancock compares the Committee’s work to the way a jury comes to a verdict. There are leaders and there are followers, but everyone has his or her perspective and contributes.

Members are supplied volumes of data by the CFP staff plus the technology to watch any game they wish although they are paired to concentrate on two conferences throughout the season.

“You learn early on that you are expected to come prepared,” Manuel said. “I am 100 percent assured that the deliberations in the room deliver a solid product we all can be proud of.

“It’s a lot of work, because we all have day jobs, but work we love to do because it’s on behalf of college football.”

West, the first committee member to come from a purely business post-college background, has maintained football connections as a longtime Sugar Bowl member, serving as president in 2018-19, and as a member of the National Football Foundation’s board of directors. “For me, it’s a wonderful respite from the normal structure of my day work.

“I’d be watching and talking about football anyway, but now when my wife wonders why I do it so much, I have a really good reason.”

Obviously, the committee members are all accomplished leaders in their fields. But even in a room full of Type A personalities, Manuel and West have stood out.

“Rod and Warde are just two delightful human beings,” Hancock said. “They are both brilliant and clever. Before Warde came onboard, I didn’t know they’d gone to high school together. But you can tell how much their friendship means to them.”

West and Manuel, born a little more than a month apart, grew up in New Orleans; Warde in the Seventh Ward before his family moved to Gentilly and Rod in New Orleans East.

Before high school, they knew each other as youngsters competing in NORD and Biddy leagues. 

At Brother Martin, they played side-by-side – Manuel at defensive tackle and West at linebacker. The Crusaders reached the playoffs their three varsity years, including a semifinal appearance in 1985 when they were seniors as both were named prep All-Americans.

Not surprisingly, lessons learned from their Crusader coaches – including Bobby Conlin, Chubby Marks and Mike Matherne – influenced them for years to come.

“It was Coach Conlin who whispered in my ear how great he thought I could be if only I would believe in myself,” West said. “All of my coaches were motivators at figuring out just how good we could be both on and off the field. We all have a well we can draw from, but you have to push yourself to keep going.”

Manuel also was greatly impacted by his Brother Martin coaches.

“They taught me to focus on being great at whatever you do in life,” he said. “I’ve never forgotten about concentrating on the little things you need to do day-in and day-out that are so important to your success.”

West and Manuel were both highly recruited and took visits together to Notre Dame and Nebraska although they ultimately decided to go to separate schools.

At Michigan, Manuel was a three-year letterman for the Wolverines before having to miss his senior season in 1989 due to a neck injury.

With his NFL dreams dashed, Manuel went into the administrative side of college athletics, first at his alma mater and later as AD at Buffalo and Connecticut before returning to Ann Arbor in 2016. He’s helped Michigan become more than a football school. In 2022-23 the Wolverines won a Big Ten record 13 conference championships.

Manuel is the first Michigan graduate to serve on the CFP committee, taking the Big Ten’s spot formerly occupied by Gary Barta of Iowa and before that Barry Alvarez of Wisconsin and Gene Smith of Ohio State.

Manuel isn’t allowed to take part in the deliberations when Michigan is discussed, and he regretted missing the Wolverines in the Big Ten championship game last season due to his committee duties. But he said the good wishes he gets from the other committee members, including West, for Michigan’s success helps make up for it.

West was a three-year letterman at tight end for Notre Dame, including the Fighting Irish’s last national championship in 1988. But unlike Manuel, instead of pursuing a career in athletics, West went to law school at Tulane. He eventually gravitated to Entergy where he gained high praise for leading the utility out of post-Katrina bankruptcy.

Along with his Sugar Bowl and NFF service, West has been a member of the LSU Board of Supervisors, including a term as president, and the Xavier University Board of Trustees. He is currently a trustee at Notre Dame and was president of the school’s alumni association.

All of that made West too busy to accept an at-large committee appointment when it was first offered.

“I just couldn’t make it work before, but I sure couldn’t hide my enthusiasm about being invited,” he said. “I have so much respect for the work the committee does, and this has given me the opportunity to give back to the sport that has played such a big part in my life.”

The committee work also gave them time to reflect on how far each has come since their playing days in Gentilly and how proud they are of what they have accomplished.

“It seems like Warde and I have always been joined at the hip,” West said. “There’s never been a move of consequence in our lives we’ve made without consulting with each other first. When we’ve been in the committee meetings, it’s easy to see how much respect he commands. I’m going to miss serving on the committee, but the fact that Warde was on it made it very special.”

Said Manuel, “If you knew Rod back then, you knew he would have the kind of career he’s had. The city of New Orleans and the state of Louisiana are better places because of what he’s accomplished. It makes me smile just thinking about him.”

And the Sugar Bowl is also proud of the successful New Orleans sons.

“The Sugar Bowl is very proud to ensure that New Orleans plays a prominent role in the College Football Playoff,” said Richard Briede, the Sugar Bowl president, and also a Brother Martin graduate. “And it’s also pretty cool that two New Orleans high school legends like Rod and Warde also get to have such a critical role in the college football postseason.”

Even if their “cutting up” days are over.