Friday, June 2, 2017

Tales From the Locker Room


I once compared Anne Boleyn to the 'condom piercing jersey chasers' that hung outside the Pacers locker room. My high school English teacher didn't like this and it prompted a call home.

My mom wasn't having ANY of that shit.

Teacher: Your son compared the Queen of England to 'condom piercing jersey chasers' that hang outside an NBA locker room.

My Mom (English Major): Interesting comparison, from what I recall the Boleyns were a power hungry family that would stop at nothing to curry favor with the crown. I suppose this is in a way similar to ensuring one would procreate with a famous athlete.

Teacher: That's not the point, it's inappropriate to discuss this in a catholic school.

My Mom: But it's true, he works for the Pacers, this practice has been known to happen. The players are taught about it.

Teacher: Still, it's offensive.

My Mom: I think it's probably more offensive to cut off someone's head because they can't bear you a male heir.

Rest assured, there were no more calls home the rest of high school.

I got my job as a ball boy through a fairly innocuous event. I was doing community service as mandated by my high school at a celebrity golf tournament. As this was Indiana, 'celebrities' were local on-air talent and a few older athletes.

My job on this day was to 'sell' mulligans, or rather the chance to earn a mulligan. For $5 you could attempt a free throw, if you may aforementioned free throw you could use a mulligan on the hole, which was also a par 3 and home to the closest to the pin contest. Closest to the pin won a basketball goal. This was also the 17th hole so most of the men that came through were thoroughly sauced by this point, selling the mulligans wasn't too tough.

Near the end of the day, a polite gentleman in his late 50's asked if he could attempt a slam dunk in lieu of a free throw. As I had never seen anyone over 50 attempt a dunk and I was bored, I urged him to knock himself out. What I did not know is that Darnell Hillman was a former NBA dunk contest champion. After he pulled off a spectacular windmill dunk we had a laugh and he offered me a job interview with the Indiana Pacers.

The following day I arrived at Conseco Fieldhouse in a shirt and tie for a 'job interview.' Unbeknownst to me, the 'interview' was just to rebound for Reggie Miller for 30 minutes. Shockingly, I didn't screw anything up and he offered me a thumbs up as he retired to the locker room. I had the job.

The life of an NBA ball boy isn't quite what it seems. On television you see the guys run down the base line and grab the player's warm-ups. You see them rebound before a game and wipe up sweat after a fall, but the majority of the job takes place before and after games. The job is actually fairly similar to being a production assistant.

The coolest parts of the job were driving $90,000 cars around downtown Indianapolis to get gas. Jermaine O'Neal used to give me all of his shoes because we had a similar foot size, Ron Artest used to give me hundred dollar tips to run upstairs and get him some nachos. I wore all of Stephen Jackson's headbands to school because I thought they made me look cool. While often the worst parts were getting yelled at by a visiting team's assistant trainer. 'CHAUNCEY GETS THE ORANGE GATORADE YOU IDIOT!"

I've seen guns, I've picked up more orders of Valtrex than I can count, I smoked weed with Trina and Mike Brown once screamed at me for falling asleep during a game.

One time I accidentally hit Chris Webber in the face with a chest pass and bloodied his nose. He legitimately cocked back to take a swing at me before Gerald Wallace intervened and taught me to make bounce passes during warm ups.

Because people always ask, Ron Artest was always the coolest guy. He was weird, yes, but he was a homie. He invited the ball boys over to his house in Zionsville to play basketball and swim. He also knew I was an aspiring rapper and played his music for me and asked me what I thought.

The biggest jerks were always the Eastern European guys, I imagine it's because they were the biggest superstars in their home countries and in America no one knew who they were.

I rebounded for Jordan, Shaq, Kobe and LeBron. Al Harrington had himself on his own fantasy basketball team and got double mad when he didn't play well, that always made me chuckle. Jonathan Bender would have been a superstar if his knee would have ever worked.

The Dale Davis rumor is true, I never saw Ron drinking before a game and David Harrison loved making me go into the crowd to get chicks' numbers.

If not for the 2004 Malice at the Palace, I'm convinced the Pacers would have won the NBA Championship and I would in turn have been given an NBA Championship ring, a fact I often gloated about, prompting my lacrosse coach to one time ask me if I would rather win state or win an NBA Championship ring. (We won state, the Pacers did not)

I look back on my time with the Pacers with both fondness and regret, similar to school and classes in college, I didn't realize how cool it was while it was happening. I would often call in a last minute sub so I could go drink in some high school kids basement and try to touch boobs. Now I would pay hundreds of dollars to get inside an NBA stadium, back then they were paying me to sit on the sidelines.

It's so strange that it all happened, it was a major part of who I was in high school, but now looking back it all feels like it was a dream. I suppose maybe it's because now at 30, I have been working for famous people over half of my life. I still keep it on my resume as a conversation starter. I spent 58 minutes of a one hour Target interview talking about Rik Smits with a Dutchman, I thought for SURE I would get that job. Other people have cut right to the chase and asked me who had the biggest dick.

I bring you these ruminations today because the NBA Finals are here and soon they will be gone and we will be nostalgic for 22 point blowout wins by the Warriors. If there is any lesson to be learned from this today it is to appreciate what you're doing at the time. I wish I would have paid attention in Spanish class in high school. I wish I wouldn't have sat in the back row during business law playing Brick Breaker, and I wish I wouldn't have dreaded working a Saturday night game because I could be in Wes Decatur's basement playing beer pong. I had a front seat to the game. I used to eat popcorn with Ron afterward and watch MTV Cribs.

Now in my current life I have a front row seat to see some of the coolest television shows get made and I always dread it. I could be doing so many other things, but you know what? Now that I think about it, it's kinda cool to see how the sausage gets made.

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