I thought this to be pretty interesting: Ball boy bet Barkley $20 http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,455030764,00.html Preston Truman was a ball boy through four years of college and through the Jazz glory years in the mid-1990s. He collected about 400 pairs of shoes during those years, including a couple pairs of Shaq's size 22 EEE boats. "You name the player, I've got their shoes," Truman said. Lots of moments from his four years stand out for him. Some he won't share. Some he will. • Like the time he made a $20 bet with Houston star Charles Barkley, who called him "Zero," that the Jazz would beat his Rockets by 25. Truman won, and Barkley paid up, sort of. "Pay the man," Barkley told a security guard. • Like the night one of the Bulls' trainers forgot to pack the applesauce Michael Jordan eats with graham crackers before every game. Truman sprinted from floor to floor in the Delta Center, searching any kitchen area for applesauce. He finally found a Costco-size can, peeled off the aluminum top, stuck a spoon in it and plunked the whole gigantic serving down in front of Jordan. "Wow, you get the job done," Jordan told him. Later he got a signed pair of Jordan's sneakers, which he keeps in a safe deposit box. He says someone offered him $11,000 cash for the shoes once. • Like the atmosphere in the Bulls' locker room after Game 6 of the 1998 NBA finals. Leonardo DiCaprio was there partying. So was Danny DeVito. Minutes before, Jordan had hit the winning shot. Truman had handed him the towel afterward. He has described that moment like picking up Babe Ruth's bat. He still has the towel. Flamboyant actress Carmen Electra was in the locker room afterward too. "You can grab my a-- if you want," she told Truman. • How he went to dinner at the Oyster Bar with Trailblazers Scottie Pippen and Rasheed Wallace and ran up a $256 bill. He met Pippen and Wallace at the Little America Hotel and walked through the lobby with the players' entourage and bodyguards. "For just that short time, I almost got a sense of what his life was like." • How he once gave 6-foot 10-inch, 300-pound Gary Trent a ride in his 1998 Honda Civic. But all of his memories aren't good. "My perception of the NBA has really changed," he said. Players can be petty prima donnas. Truman named Patrick Ewing, Reggie Miller in this category. Some players acted worse than Truman's 2-year-old nephews. "Being a ball boy kind of killed my love for it. I saw behind the scenes. I think I've been to two Jazz games since I was a ball boy."
