LEXINGTON, Ky. — On the eve of UCLA’s greatest recreation of the season, there was a fluid scenario within the locker room.
The water boy couldn’t discover something to drink.
Nothing available aligned with Finn Barkenaes’ new sponsor, Niagara Bottling, resulting in jokes a couple of private prohibition.
“He can’t drink certain kind of drinks because he’s got an NIL deal,” Bruins coach Mick Cronin stated of the top scholar supervisor who lately turned the primary water boy to land a nationwide model sponsorship. “And I was looking around, and they said, ‘No, it’s true.’”
UCLA males’s basketball supervisor Finn Barkenaes stands on the court docket in the course of the Bruins’ NCAA match apply Wednesday at Rupp Area in Lexington, Ky.
(Jan Kim Lim / UCLA Athletics)
Barkenaes can really drink no matter he needs, however he’d strongly favor or not it’s a Niagara product.
The Diamond Bar-based firm lately chosen the senior enterprise economics main to be its pitchman for what is likely to be the final word Cinderella story of March Insanity.
“Let’s be real, water boys don’t get NIL deals,” Barkenaes stated, “so it’s been pretty cool to be part of something that’s, like, flip the script on things and get recognized, even if it is in kind of a joking manner.”
In the course of the subsequent few weeks, Barkenaes can be featured on Niagara’s Instagram and different social media platforms, the tagline being that 2025 is the “Year of the water boy.”
“At Niagara, we believe unsung heroes like Finn keep top athletic programs running strong with high-quality water,” stated Julia Buchanan, the corporate’s vp of selling and communications. “He was the perfect choice as our first-ever NIL water boy — his dedication to UCLA athletics is unmatched, and he plays a vital role in supporting a legendary program.”
At first, Barkenaes thought the entire thing was a joke. A water boy pitchman? Critically?
He realized in any other case as soon as he began hopping on Zooms with firm executives from across the nation, resulting in his signing a take care of undisclosed phrases. Barkenaes did expose that he’s already acquired a number of instances of water, with extra more likely to come.
“I’m jealous,” Cronin stated as his workforce ready to face Utah State on Thursday at Rupp Area within the first spherical of the NCAA match. “That’s what I just told him.”
Handing out water is likely to be the best factor Barkenaes does. He and the opposite managers sweep the apply court docket, load tools onto buses and planes, tape simulated basketball courts onto lodge ballroom flooring and check out — in an usually futile effort — to cease the workforce’s massive males in apply whereas carrying outsized pads on their arms.
“He’s hitting us, pushing us,” middle Aday Mara stated of Barkenaes.
This isn’t the primary time Barkenaes has been known as a water boy. Arizona and Arizona State followers as soon as used the time period to heckle him, however the taunts had the other of their supposed impact.
UCLA males’s basketball supervisor Finn Barkenaes poses alongside Niagara Bottling merchandise. Barkenaes has an endorsement take care of the corporate.
(Niagara Bottling)
“The whole idea is that we’re out of the spotlight, and the people who work this job do it because they love basketball and they love UCLA,” stated Barkenaes, who needs to work in wealth administration or finance after commencement. “All of the staff with me, they’re not in it for the spotlight and the recognition, so I think people kind of embrace it, it’s kind of like a chip-on-your-shoulder thing. It’s like, ‘I’m the water boy, I’m the one that people typically don’t care about.’”
Now he’s the discuss of the locker room, gamers calling Barkenaes “Money man,” “Niagara boy” and “Water boy.”
He simply smiles, a no one soaking in success.
