STU graduate Manny Colon rises to impressive post with Oakland A’s
Manny Colon flew from Arizona to Miami this week for a special reason -- the 50th anniversary of the St. Thomas University sports administration program.
Colon, hired last year as the Oakland A’s Director of Minor League Operations, is one of many successful graduates of the STU program. The list includes Andy Elisburg, the behind-the-scenes executive who worked the salary cap as if he invented it, helping the Miami Heat win three NBA titles.
STU’s program has also graduated Teresa Resch, who helped the Toronto Raptors win their first NBA championship in 2019, serving as Vice President of Basketball Operations and Player Development; University of South Florida athletics director Michael Kelly; and Pac-12 Conference Associate Commissioner for Football Operations Shonna Brown.
“It’s an honor to be a graduate of this program,” said Colon, whose brother, Kelvin, played baseball for STU. “My ties to St. Thomas run deep.”
Manny Colon, 44, who lives in Arizona, recently served as the general manager of the Cangrejeros de Santurce, who have won the most games in the history of Puerto Rican professional baseball. Santurce, in its 80-year history, has won 16 national titles and five Caribbean Series, and Colon had the duty of signing players and running the club, with his brother Kelvin, a 34-year-old Los Angeles Dodgers scout, serving as his assistant GM.
However, after a couple of months with the club, Manny Colon stepped down on March 2 to focus on his duties with the A’s.
“While I was the GM of Santurce, I took 15 red-eye flights from Phoenix to Miami to Puerto Rico,” Colon said. “It was too much.”
Colon, a California native, has made it a long way in baseball – especially for someone who got cut from his attempt to make the squad at Tennessee-Martin. He still earned his Bachelor’s degree in international Business from Tennessee Martin. From there, he earned a Master’s degree from STU, and he worked for the Miami Marlins from 2002 to 2020 in various logistics-type roles, including Director of Team Travel.
Ultimately, Colon’s contract with the Marlins was not renewed. Colon said the reason behind that was that Derek Jeter, who served as Marlins CEO from July 2017 to February of 2022, wanted to hire his own employees.
“It’s part of the game,” Colon said. “You buy a team, and you want to bring your people in.”
After leaving the Marlins, Colon took seven months off before taking a wildly divergent path, serving as the director for an art museum called, Van Gogh: The Immersive Experience.
“When you looked at my resume before that, all you could see was sports,” Colon said. “I wanted to see if my baseball skills could be transferrable. It was a huge challenge, and I showed I could manage people.”
Colon, who lived in Broward County at the time, took the job two weeks before the museum opened.
He had zero employees at the time.
“I started recruiting during COVID,” Colon said. “I recruited people who had a chip on their back, like me. I got let go (by the Marlins) during COVID for no reason.”
Colon hired 60 people – “the 60 most wonderful human beings,” he said – and the museum is still running.
By January of 2022, Colon started getting calls from major-league teams who wanted him to return to baseball. He said the A’s made him an “amazing” offer to handle the logistics side of their minor-league operation, working closely with ex-MLB third baseman Ed Sprague Jr., who is Oakland’s Director of Player Development.
Colon said his new job has been fulfilling but also tiring. On Monday, for example, Colon said he spent the entire day on the phone dealing with various issues regarding A’s minor-leaguers, including housing, bus travel, meal money, salaries and more.
“Between Santurce and Oakland,” Colon said, “I haven’t gotten a break in a year. The job doesn’t stop.”
