Work with the Pros: The Perks of Being a Ball Kid

WORDS RUDY KLANCNIK

WHILE HIS BUDDIES WERE TOILING AWAY busing tables, bagging groceries and flipping burgers, Noah Barton was talking about how to hit a curveball with a professional baseball player. And he was getting paid to do it.

“I couldn’t believe it when I found out I had gotten the job as bat boy for the [Texas] AirHogs,” says the 15-year-old Mansfield freshman. “For a first job, I couldn’t have found a better one. And the experience really taught me a lot about how to put in a hard day at work and enjoy it at the same time. It was very fulfilling.”

Like a select group of youngsters in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, Noah found his peek into the professional sports world to be eye-opening—and definitely never boring. Noah’s day at the park usually started two hours before first pitch and included filling water jugs, getting the umpires’ room squared away, making sure there were enough baseballs for the umps and organizing bats and helmets in the dugout. Then he could have some fun.

“Probably my best lesson was never putting things off until later,” he says. “When I had something to do, I did it quickly so then later I could better enjoy the experience of the game and mix in with the players. That was the best.”

Not surprisingly, breaking into the sports world is super competitive. After all, anyone who’s ever attended a ball game has dreamed of how cool it would be to work for a sports team. Fortunately for kiddos in our area, the opportunitiesto work in sports are numerous thanks to our abundance of professional sports teams (more than a dozen). Still, landing one of these gigs can be as challenging as defending Luka Dončić on the fast break.

“Being a ball kid is an excellent way to become part of the Texas Legends game operation at a young age,” explains Brock Berenato, who heads up basketball operations for the Frisco-based Legends. “Ball kids rebound before the games for our players and opposing players, move the ball racks on and off the court, mop the floors for slick spots, move towels and other gear to and from the locker rooms, and make sure players have water or Gatorade when they need it.

“Of course they also get to see how our operations staff do their jobs and enjoy [watching] NBA-caliber players perform,” he adds. “The kids are a vital part of our game day operation.”

UP TO PAR

The minimum age for kids to get involved varies from team to team. With the Legends, it’s 10. For the AirHogs, it’s 15. For the Mavericks, who choose their Mavs Ballkids from among participants in their skills camps, it’s 13. It’s smart to check out your favorite team’s official website for age requirements. (See sidebar at direction for more local teams’ requirements.)

“We want kids who are responsible, and we interview them to talk about that beforehand,” says Kelsey Armand, community relations specialist for the

AirHogs. “We prefer bat boys/girls to continue in the job even when school begins but understand that they will have to miss from time to time since school always should come first.”

Travis Charles, director of basketball operations for the WNBA’s Dallas Wings, loves his team’s ball kidprogram—but he emphasizes that the kids are there to work.

“We treat them like employees because they have some very important jobs to do at every game,” says Charles, whose team plays home games at the University of Texas at Arlington. “You’ve got to take care of the officials before the game, run errands for players in both locker rooms, rebound during the pregame shootarounds, work with the game crew, handle halftime duties for the refs and more rebounding during shoot-arounds after halftime.”

Charles says while rebounding sounds fun to any basketballplaying kid—and it is very fun—the pros can be demanding. “We’ve actually had some complaints from visiting players when they didn’t love how our kids were rebounding and feeding them the ball,” he reveals. “So, yes, it’s important to be good at the game to be a ball kid.”

For really good ball kids, an internship with the team could be in the cards. “We’ve definitely hired interns from our ball kid program,” Charles says. “It’s awesome watching them mature over the course of the season and blossom into great members of our game day staff.”