First, can you let me know what you’re doing with yourself now?
I graduated from RMU and am an actuarial analyst for a company here in Pittsburgh. I live in Bethel Park with my fiancee’ and puppy – we just bought a new house so we’re getting settled in nicely here.
I’ve been a Steelers fan all of my life!
So, tell me about how you got the ballboy gig, first of all?
My family and I were season ticket holders. Me, my parents and brother. We went to maybe two games a year- we lived in Sharon, PA and it was a one-and-a-half hour drive to the city. We had nosebleed seats and we’d always see kids running on the field before the games, snagging punts and stuff. We just figured those were the coaches and players’ kids.
Well, I didn’t know it, but my mother called the ticket office and asked about it. They had her talk to the equipment guy there – Pat Noone who reached out to her. So one day my mother picked me up from school after track practice and told me what she did and that I had an interview set up with Pat.
My dad too me to the interview and I got set up with the position.
What did it entail?
Everything from laundry to setting up the equipment before practices. Anything you can imagine a back office helping players and coaches with. Putting out gear, shagging balls, running the chains for the seven-on-sevens…
They’d put us with different position groups. I started off with the offensive line and got to work with Mike Adams. My aunt and his grandparents were friends – we grew up in the same town so it was great having a familiar face there. That was special.
What else did they have you do?
After practice I helped clean the field and then went in and cleaned up the locker room when players left. Including doing the laundry. We had about 20 ballboys and a couple of equipment interns as well.
Any good memories of the players there?
I’ll tell you – there were no bad guys on the team. No status got to their heads – no one tried to take advantage of the staff or anything like that.
Mike Adams and I were close – he came to my graduation party. Heath Miller – he was my favorite player so I was biased – but he was so nice. Troy was an amazing guy too. Especially for the guys that were fathers, they understood that we were were just high school kids.
There was one player, I forget who, who made sure that everyone thanked us as well.
Any funny memories?
One time I was in locker room one – that was the one where guys like Ben, Troy – the veteran guys were. Troy’s kids came in and he asked me to watch them while he went out to the field and did some stuff. Well, I turned around and when I looked back they were gone. I was panicking but then I saw them playing hide and seek behind Troy’s clothes that were hanging from a rod. I was a panicked 13-year old kid for a moment there!
Shaun Sarret – he gave me the nickname “Sharpsburg” because I talked about where I was from and how I was from the same area as Mike Adams.
We were never allowed to ask for autographs. That was one of the rules. But there was a time when they had a photographer in for Steelers.com and there was a picture of Ryan Shazier and Chris Carter I really liked. I asked first but they let me have a picture and had both players sign it. I have that hanging up in my office.
What stands out most to you of your time there?
People used to say that it must have been so cool, but after a while it was just like a day at the office. They were all so nice. They had a pool table in the back corner of the locker room and they’d ask me to play with them sometimes. Especially on those late games, we had to set up and clean up three hours before and after a game. So we’d play ping pong while I waited for my parents to come pick me up. They were both teachers so they wouldn’t let me take the day off from school the next day either!
Any other moments stand out to you?
I handled the Gatorade cart at games too sometimes. To the right of the cart were the wide receivers and the left were the offensive and defensive linemen. Man, some of the things they said I can’t repeat. Some of the words they used…
When AB almost won the game when he ran the distance versus Miami and we thought he scored – everyone went crazy. It got called back but I remember their reactions. And I was responsible for answering the phone when we got calls from up top. I could tell just by hearing the voice on the phone if it was going to be a good or bad call!
Shagging punts at halftime was tough too. I was always nervous snagging them in front of the crowds there. They probably weren’t even paying attention! Sometimes they had kids and dogs running on the field so running around avoiding them got tricky.
And I laugh at it now. One time there was a Pepsi bottle underneath the Gatorade cart. It was there for a while so I told one of the other ballboys that if it was still there by the third quarter we’s split it. We just figured someone left it there and forgot about it. Well we drank it and a little while later Jonathan Dwyer came up to us asking if we saw a Pepsi bottle lying around anywhere. We said no….I laugh about it now because years later he was in a Pepsi commercial!
Read more by former Steelers via the book Steelers Takeaways: Player Memories Through the Decades. To order, just click on the book:
