Ball boys see stars, do dirty work Jazz 'dream job' offers inside look at NBA basketball By Lucinda Dillon Kinkead Deseret News staff writer This is the stuff of a basketball fan's dreams: ferrying messages between basketball great Michael Jordan and former Jazz forward Bryon Russell; collecting souvenir high tops from not only Kobe Bryant but Shaquille O'Neal, Charles Barkley, Clyde "The Glide" Drexler; running errands for the game's top stars and Utah's own hoop heroes. Preston Truman has collected more than 400 pairs of shoes during his four years as a Jazz ball boy. He keeps a pair signed by Michael Jordan in a safe deposit box. Certainly there are job perks for about 15 young men picked as ball boys for the Utah Jazz. And former and current members of this elite squad say the greatest perk is an insider's look at the coveted world of NBA basketball. "It's my dream job," said Adam Klauke, 20, who is in his fourth year as a "ball boy." The ball handling ends up being the least of it. So do some of the other high-profile tasks Jazz fans might see during a game. Yes, ball boys deliver water to Stockton, warm-ups to Malone, a towel to Kirilenko, an errant ball to Ostertag during the shoot-around. But they also stock coolers with water, Coke products and Powerade. They prepare the hot packs athletes need before, during and after the games. They run errands. They do mountains of laundry. And they prepare the gooey felt taping pads players wear on their feet to prevent blisters and injuries. Each guy wears four on each foot, and they get changed at half time, so trainers need dozens for each game. It's a messy, time-consuming job. "This is not a job where you come to the games to watch and pass out a towel every once in a while," said T.C. Clark, a Jazz assistant trainer and equipment manager for nearly two decades and supervisor for the squad of ball boys. Nick Fairclough, 24, loves the job. "It really isn't like people think," said Fairclough, who has been doing it since 1995. "I was so star-struck at first, but you do get to know that these guys aren't superheroes. They are ordinary guys with extraordinary talents." And as the Jazz top ball boy, Fairclough regularly rubs elbows with Jazz players and members of other NBA teams. They clearly have their favorite players. "Kobe's always been really cool to us," Fairclough said. Scottie Pippen, too. Horace Grant has a reputation of being great to ball boys all over the league, Fairclough said. Then there are players who are totally opposite of their on-screen, public persona. The tattooed, pierced Dennis Rodman fell into this category, according to the ball boys interviewed. "He was all tattooed up and all crazy in front of the cameras, but really he was a nice guy," Fairclough said. Shy almost. Humble. David Gammon, who worked as a ball boy about five years ago, was a rookie with Greg Ostertag. Gammon was just 16 and waiting for his mom to pick him up after practice. Ostertag noticed him waiting and offered him a ride. "I thought that was cool. He would have given me a ride, even though I lived a half-hour away." "There are definitely perks," Fairclough said. He has Kobe's shoes, a Michael Jordan-signed ball and a signed jersey from Shaquille O'Neal. There are also tips from trainers to the ball boys who staff the visitors' locker room, gifts from players and prime seats for some of basketball's most exciting moments. The 1996-97 Jazz had the best record in franchise history that year (64-18), and had run over the Clippers, Lakers and Rockets in the Western Conference to face the Chicago Bulls in the finals. Basketball fans remember Game 5, when Michael Jordan worked magic on the floor despite being sicker than a dog. Stomach virus and all, Jordan scored 38 points, including the three-pointer that pushed Chicago ahead in the 90-88 win. From this game, Gammon said he traded another ball boy for the sweetest piece of memorabilia collected during his ball boy career. "I got Jordan's socks." But there are also job site hazards: profanity, for one. "Some kids are subjected to the language and actions they've never dreamed of hearing or seeing," Clark said. There is a gopher factor too. If a player asks, they might have to pull a sweaty orthotic out of a jumbo-size shoe for them. They also run errands for Clark, coaches and players. Maybe a new DVD comes out that one of the players wants, and the ball boy will go get it. Maybe one of them needs a ride back to the hotel. Maybe one of the visiting players wants a girl's phone number. Ball boys are trained to run when a player asks: "Give this to my wife." "Run these tickets to will call." "Go get me a pretzel." And the laundry, say current and former ball boys, should be its own subset of the job description. Think about it. A player touches a towel, it's dirty. Someone in purple pants and black T-shirt — the Jazz ball boy uniform — has to follow the towel from the player, off the floor, to the laundry room, through washing drying and folding, and back out to the player again. Same for every practice. Same for the visiting team. Two washing machines start churning away about 11 a.m. after the Jazz practice shoot-around on game days and don't stop until well after midnight. That's a lot of uniforms, "jock and sock" bags, warm-ups and towels, towels, towels. A glamorous life? One Wednesday night in January after the Jazz 99-93 victory over the Phoenix Suns, head ball boy Fairclough was at the Delta Center until 1 a.m. feeding the laundry machines. For this, the ball boys make minimum wage or a little better. There was a ball girl once who worked from the 1995-1996 season through 1999-2000. Clark wants a ball boy who's trustworthy, punctual, dependable, and maybe most importantly, confidential. "These guys see and hear a lot of things, and they don't need to be going home and telling their neighbors," Clark said. And there are stories — about arguments between players and coaches, about wacky locker room behavior, about girlfriends — but most of the ball boys guard their secrets fiercely. These coveted jobs come mostly through word-of-mouth referrals, Clark said, although people can apply through the Human Resource Department. Adam Klauke, 20, hooked up with the squad through his dad, Steve Klauke, of KFAN radio. He is a soft-spoken young man who is studying exercise and sports science at the University of Utah, and is in his fourth year with Clark and the Jazz. He has graduated to the No. 2 Ball Boy in Charge. So Klauke got to work the visitors' locker room during the January Jazz-Suns matchup. Meanwhile, Fairclough spent the evening readying the Jazz locker room for players before, during and after the game. At half time, Jazz players' clothes are waiting for the game's end. Malone has two boxes of Krispy Kremes waiting for him. Ostertag's size 18 cowboy boots are tucked next to his chair. Stockton has asked each of his teammates to donate one pair of their shoes to a charity, and Fairclough has gathered them up and put them in Stockton's car. With nine minutes left in the second half, he is filling ice bags. "They generally don't get used, but you have to be prepared for anything." Ball boys have to perfect the delicate balance of being invisible and out of the way, and also available, perfectly prepared and at-the-ready with a warm-up, towel or cup of water. It's a balancing act even Jazz coach Jerry Sloan says is unenviable at times, and sometimes the ball boys are taken for granted. "That's one of the things that's unfortunate," Sloan said. "I think all the ball boys are very important to what we're doing. I just don't like to see them mistreated. "Sometimes (players) get the idea that all they're there for is to just 'Go get this,' 'Go get that,' 'Give me this,' 'Give me that,' without any consideration as to them having feelings like everybody else," Sloan said.
