The town of Cincinnatus, New York, is a rural farming town of just over 1,000 people, and it isn’t the place that many people get the opportunity to leave behind.
Bob Knickerbocker was one of the lucky few who did get to leave.
Knickerbocker has been the head athletic equipment coordinator since 1983, and has helped oversee some of the uniform changes that MSU athletics have seen in the past few seasons.
He will retire following this school year, but it will come after a long and fulfilling ride with MSU.
“This kind of life has been very exciting for me,” he said. “Watching how people mature from freshman to senior year has probably been my favorite thing.”
Knickerbocker had a different path to get to East Lansing. He spent his college years in upstate New York at Ithaca College and Syracuse.
He then went down to Villanova to help on the athletics staff with the Wildcats.
“My goal was never to be an equipment manager,” he said. “I wanted to be a basketball coach.”
Knickerbocker never did get to live his dream of being a basketball coach, but he was able to go to move on from Villanova and go to MSU, where he settled down and was able to become ingrained in MSU athletics.
He has now been the head athletic equipment coordinator for 32 years, and although he said a lot of the perception of his job is that he is responsible for making sure the uniforms are clean every day, he said the last 32 years has involved much more than that.
“I went through five or six coaches in 10-15 years,” he said. “Everything we did, they’re going to change. There’s an adjustment getting to know the people, what guys want, how he wants to start practice, things like that.”
Knickerbocker said that as he approached his 65th birthday, he decided the time has come to step away from the job he has had for so long.
“This isn’t something I decided overnight,” he said. “I’ve been contemplating. This hasn’t been an easy decision. I don’t feel old because being around young people has caused me to think younger.”
Knickerbocker has cultivated Plenty of relationships over the course of 32 years, and he said a lot of those people have expressed their thanks for all of his service in the past few weeks since he announced his retirement.
“My phone has been ringing off the hook,” he said. “I’ve heard from people from way, way back, not just ex-players, ex-coaches and other people. I’ve been overwhelmed and humbled by it. I don’t get all that but you can’t appreciate it more than I have.”
As for what is next for Knickerbocker, he said that still remains up in the air. A lot of his family is still in central New York so he plans on going back there for a little bit.
“My family owns an 18-hole golf course,” he said. “Maybe my golf game will improve a little bit.”
