Athens — John Bateman, who doesn't know the flamenco from the funky chicken, is the new director of the Georgia Dance Dawgs.

Temporarily. Hectic times. Desperate measures.

"I don't know any dances," joked Bateman, who is normally Georgia's director of marketing. He learned of his new added title on Sunday. "They told me they were going to teach me some dance ... the shuffle something."

Maybe it's the shuffle off to D.C.? That's where Bateman, the Dance Dawgs and the men's basketball team are headed for the NCAA tournament. Or maybe it's off to Norfolk, Va., where the women's team will play its first round game?

For the first time since 2002, Georgia's mens and women's basketball teams are in the NCAA tournaments. And it has staff members moving furiously to fill roles, which brings us back to Bateman.

The cheerleaders must have a certified coach with them, as per NCAA rules. They are headed to Norfolk, Va. So Shelly Korpieski, the spirit coordinator and only certified cheerleading coach, is leading them.

That left the Dance Dawgs without a guide. In waltzed — OK, bad choice of words — Bateman.

"He has promised us he is going to show us a dance," Korpieski said.

The rest of the Georgia staff has been keeping the beat since Saturday night, when the possibility that the men's team might make it began to feel real. So department members had to prepare quickly.

"For the women this is old hat," said Arthur Johnson, associate athletic director for internal operations.

The women's team has been to 14 consecutive NCAA tournaments and 25 out of 27. As for the men ...

"We hadn't worked on anything in advance," Johnson said.

Who can blame them? The men's team had lost 11 of 13 games before they won the SEC tournament.

"After we won the first game Saturday I told them, 'Y'all, I know this sounds funny but start thinking of a potential plan,'" Bateman said.

It was Saturday night when Johnson started to look at the NCAA Manual for the men's tournament.

"As I walked away from that game Saturday night it hit me that I had to start planning some things," Johnson said.

There were schedules to coordinate, passenger manifests to pull together and deadlines to meet. Johnson had from 6:45 p.m. Sunday, when Georgia learned where it was going to play, to a 10 a.m. meeting on Monday morning.

"I went to bed a 3 a.m. and got up at 6:30 a.m.," he said. "That's OK. If I don't sleep at all for the next three weeks it is worth it."

Seventy-five people are included in the official traveling party. That is the cap mandated by the NCAA. Within that are the 15 players, 17 athletic department staff members, 30 pep band members, 12 dance team members and a mascot. All the personal info — id's and such — have to be gathered. Then the band's instruments have to be measured to make sure the charter plane can accommodate the weight.

That is just for the men. The women have the same hurdles.

"Just for the cheerleaders and the band you are talking about close to 100 people," Bateman said.

That's close to 100 kids who have to figure out what to do about missed classes, who might have to scrap Easter Sunday plans, who basically have to interrupt their lives.

"But it's fun," Bateman said. "You want it to be like this every year."