Amir Khan recalls how he landed job as manager for Will Wade, McNeese

If you haven’t heard the name Amir Khan by now, you haven’t been paying attention to March Madness. The McNeese State student manager has become one of the biggest names of this year’s NCAA Tournament, with his star continuing to rise even after 12th-seeded McNeese was bounced following a second-round loss to fourth-seeded Purdue on Saturday.

During a recent interview on the KFC Radio on Barstool Sports podcast, Khan opened up about his viral celebrity status, including reportedly inking multiple six-figure NIL deals, and how his appreciation for former LSU head coach Will Wade led him to becoming the Cowboys’ team manager.

“I’ve lived in Lake Charles my whole life and McNeese is the hometown school, and in terms of being a manager, I’ve been a LSU fan — football, basketball — and Coach Wade, what he did at LSU, no coach has ever done that,” Khan recalled. “He brought a different energy and was just winning, and LSU hasn’t done that for awhile. So whenever he came down here (to McNeese State), and I’ve been a student here for two years, it was a no-brainer to come out and work for him.”

Wade, who was announced as NC State‘s new men’s basketball coach on Sunday, spent the past two seasons at McNeese State, where he compiled an impressive 50-9 overall record and 36-2 in the Southland Conference with back-to-back NCAA Tournament appearances. Prior to that, Wade went 105-51 overall in five years at LSU before he was fired in March 2022 after the program was served with a NCAA notice of allegations stemming from numerous recruiting violations uncovered as part of the 2019 FBI investigation into college basketball.

While it’s currently unclear if he intends to follow Wade to NC State, Khan pulled back the curtain on the origin of his viral role leading the McNeese team onto the court with a Cowboys-colored boombox.

“The whole two years I’ve been here it’s really just been a normal manager role, but our (director of basketball operations) Nick Flory told us that one of the duties that we have was someone has to carry the speaker when we walk out, and I just happened to grab the speaker the first game and that’s kind of how I’ve been doing that,” Khan said. “But I do the same thing as other managers do, we all play our role in different ways, and that’s just one way I do it.”

Amir Khan addresses outside outrage over his stardom

Most fans don’t know the name of their favorite team’s manager. However, as he’s rocketed to some level of acclaim online, many now know the name of McNeese State Cowboys team manager Amir Khan. However, that kind of stardom can be a double-edged sword and now there has been some outside pushback against him.

Khan has heard some of that outrage too. As he explained on KFC Radio, while Khan has heard the issues some people have with seeing stories about him, he also doesn’t force anyone to run those stories or have a true ability to stop them.

“I would say definitely some comments there that are saying they’re tired of this guy,” Amir Khan said. “Which I don’t blame them. Everywhere on social media you go, they see me.”

For many people, the issue isn’t with Khan himself. Instead, it’s more like fatigue with seeing him everywhere they look on social media. That’s a frustration he can understand, even if it’s not about him as a person and isn’t something he can control.

“Some of it’s not full-on hating, it’s just they believe the coaches and players should get more exposure,” Khan said. “And I believe that too, but I’m not in control of the media. I can’t control what they say, what they do. I’m just doing my thing and if they overuse it that’s on them. I’m just gonna keep doing my thing.”

— On3’s Dan Morrison contributed to this report.