FAYETTEVILLE — “Manny!” I remember tweeting just that one word when Manuale Watkins hit the game-winner at Ole Miss his sophomore year.
My thoughts flashed back to the day he was supposed to sign with Missouri State, which was his biggest scholarship offer coming out of high school. The ceremony was set up at Fayetteville High School, cake and all, but at the last minute Watkins decided to walk-on for the Razorbacks and play at Arkansas where his dad, Melvin Watkins, was an assistant.
“My heart was just never at Missouri State,” Manny Watkins said. “I went and talked to coach Anderson that morning and said my heart is here, not at Missouri State. He said, ‘You have a spot on this team if you want it.’ I talked to my dad and then he called my high school coaches and said, ‘Take the cake up, we’re not doing it.’ It all happened in a span of like two hours.”
“I was at an all-star coaches meeting,” Fayetteville High School Coach Kyle Adams said. “I didn’t have my phone until I got out of the meeting and had like 900 texts from everybody at Missouri State wondering why they hadn’t received his letter.”
Watkins didn’t play much his freshman year, but by the end of his sophomore season, he had earned a scholarship and was playing an important role for the Razorbacks.
“I knew it was going to be a challenge,” Watkins said. “My dad said you might not have a chance to play here, but I always thought I could do it. I thought if I worked hard every day that something would happen for me, and thank God it did.”
While Watkins doesn’t fill up the stat sheet — averaging 5.5 points, 3.6 rebounds, and 1.8 assists — he has emerged as a leader for the Razorbacks. The team seems to feed off his energy and some fans have noticed.
When Arkansas’ big lead against LSU began to evaporate, my inbox was filled with “where is Manny” messages. He was sick and for the first time in his college career was unable to practice or play.
“That’s never happened before; he never misses a practice,” said Arkansas Director of Basketball Operations Matt Zimmerman. “His teammates respect him because of how hard he works.”
The same was true of Watkins in high school.
“There are two things that really stand out,” Adams said. “He was just a winner and would find a way to get things done when maybe we weren’t playing well. The other thing was his leadership. He came to practice every day and worked hard. He was vocal but also led by example.”
Now as a senior, Watkins has become what Mike Anderson refers to as a “glue guy” and is often found giving his team a much-needed spark, which usually comes in the form of defense or a hustle play. Recently it came in the most unlikely of ways. After making his first career 3-pointer against Missouri, he then knocked down three consecutive shots from beyond the arc to fuel a comeback win at Texas A&M.
A little known fact about Watkins is he’s always in the gym shooting.
“He’s always in here,” Zimmerman said. “We said, ‘Hey, if you’re going to be in here 16 straight days getting up 500 shots, you might as well let some fly.’”
“I’m in the gym as much as anybody, really," Watkins said. "I had to shoot at A&M because of the flow of the game.”
But he’s also quick to point out that offense comes and goes and effort and energy will always be a staple in his game. Watkins plays with an edge and is still motivated by how he ended up walking on at Arkansas.
“I didn’t get recruited,” he said. “I wake up every day thinking about that. Why didn’t I get get recruited? It sits with me every day. I go out there every day wanting show the coaches who didn’t recruit me that they made a mistake. I wanted to show everyone that I work for everything I get. It’s not because I’m a coach’s kid.”
There’s likely some coaches who regret not seeing more in him, but there was no mistake in Manuale Watkins becoming a Razorback.
This story originally appeared in Hawgs Illustrated