My Uncle works for the Pittsburgh Steelers, so being one of his favorite nephews I get some sweet benefits out of the relationship. One of which, is occasionally getting to work in the locker room. For the pre-season game against the Redskins at FedEx field, I was assigned the job of ball boy.
We got to the stadium around 3:00 and made sure that the locker room was all set for the players when they started arriving around 4:30. The players filed in, started getting dressed, and it was immediately apparent who were the veterans and who were the guys trying to make the team. The rookie guys had that deer in the headlights look in their eyes. You could tell they needed something, but weren’t really sure who to ask for what. After hanging with the team for an hour or so I had my meeting with the officials.
The Redskins ball boys were all veterans who had been doing it since Theismann and Riggins were playing. This was actually a good thing, because there is a whole system to getting balls in and out of the game that I was completely unaware of. We all huddled up outside of the official’s locker room and the side judge explained the deal to all of us. If the ball goes out here, you get me the ball here. Make sure you have enough Steelers balls at all times. You have to toss the balls in underhand, no overhand throws. On long passes you have to sprint down the sideline to make sure I have a ball for the next play. Holy shit, guys! I expected to hang out with Jeff Reed as kicked into a net on the sidelines all game, and suddenly I have all of this responsibility.
I headed out to the Steelers sideline for the start of the game and the Redskins guy looks at me and says “Do you have the balls?” Panic! All of the introductions are going on, the crowd is going nuts and I’m running through the pyrotechnics and stiff-arming cheerleaders trying to get back to the locker room to grab the game balls. I finally get back to the field and the main Redskins ball boy who has been doing this for 20 years looks at me and says have you been practicing your throws. Practicing my throws? I was informed about the ball boy thing two hours ago! He looks at me and shakes his head like he just found out the hooker in the front seat next to him had TMJ.
The game starts and when the Skins have the ball I get to chill, which is nice. I get to watch the game, see how the coaches work and check out the cheerleaders. When the Steelers have the ball I need to stand about 12 yards from scrimmage and wait to see which side of the field the play ends up on. It’s raining so I’m trying to keep the three balls I’m holding dry, I need to stay out of the way of the coaches and cameramen all while not getting killed by the players who are two feet away from me. Head on a swivel my friend, head on a swivel.
Because of an ankle injury Big Ben isn’t playing, but a few minutes into the first quarter he comes down the sidelines and asks to see the Steelers balls. He says that Batch said they were a little flat. I toss him a couple and he pushes in a good sized dent. When I got the balls back I tested them and I couldn’t push the ball in at all, and I click a mouse all day long, so you know my fingers are tough.
By the end of the first half I start getting into a rhythm, but the amount of concentration involved took some of the fun out of being on the sidelines for the game. Right before the first half was over, Jeff Reed is about to kick a field goal and Troy Polamalu leans over to me and asks how long the kick was. I say 54 yards like he and I have been poker buddies for years. He smiles and says “It’s good”. That’s a drawback to working the locker room and sidelines, you don’t get to be a super fan. You have to act like the guys you’d sacrifice your first born child to watch play every Sunday are just average dudes. Kind of hard to do when they are in the locker room talking about how “these are my Super Bowl pants, make sure you get these back to me for my trophy case”. Shit dude, I might have to steal those for my trophy case.
The locker room is pristine before a game, but afterwards it gets ugly in a hurry. Media, very large sweaty men and equipment guys are everywhere. I started grabbing bags of gear and piling them up to be loaded onto the trucks. Excuse me Ed Bouchette of the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, step aside man with an extremely large black penis, I’ve got a job to do. It takes about an hour to get everything done and then it’s time to call it a night. I’m sweating like the new white guy in prison, exhausted from my first exercise of 2009 and extremely excited to sit in FedEx traffic smelling like an offensive lineman’s jock.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I need re-watch the game, so I can catch a glimpse of myself sporting extremely white tennis shoes and pacing the sidelines like a Chris Rock stand-up routine.
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