Tales from the college football sidelines: The ‘ridiculously fun’ life as a ball boy

It was one of the biggest moments in Georgia football history. Players were celebrating. Fans were delirious.

But Bennett Vest had a job to do.

Yes, for all intents and purposes, the game was over when Ohio State kicker Noah Ruggles missed a 50-yard field goal attempt with only eight seconds remaining in the 2022 College Football Playoff semifinal at the Peach Bowl.

But the game wasn’t actually over.

So Vest, situated on the Ohio State sideline, weaved through the maze of dejected Buckeyes and completed his final task: delivering the game ball to the official. Moments later, quarterback Stetson Bennett took one final snap to send Georgia to the national championship game.

Welcome to life as a ball boy.

“Though we may not have a direct impact on the game,” said Vest, who served as a student manager for the Bulldogs as an undergraduate, “we can certainly mess it up.”

It’s an important if largely unseen job that requires timing, quick instincts, athleticism and — as one equipment manager put it — “maturity.”

But it’s also wildly fun, according to those who have done it. And there’s no other gig like it in college football.

“I’m never gonna look at a game the same,” said Ben Shirley, a former manager at Clemson who is now on the equipment staff at UNLV.

“Like, any sport ever again, after doing this.”

College football programs employ anywhere from 12 to 25 student managers, typically undergraduates who work for a stipend. Duties during the week range from practice setup to equipment prep to laundry to … well, anything required to keep the operation running smoothly.

On game day, as many as six managers serve as ball boys — two or three on each sideline. The job requirement is simple: If the game ball is thrown out of bounds or knocked out of play, make sure the officials have a replacement as quickly as possible.

“Kids love it. It’s just exciting for them and there’s really never a better seat in the house because you’re right where the play is, you’re right where the ball is,” said Luke Wyatt, the former head equipment manager at Vanderbilt. “The managers would always politic to see if they could be the ball boy that weekend.”

But working the opposing sidelines comes with more responsibility, as well.

“Over the years, I always tried to put the most mature guys on the (other) side because they’re not gonna run their mouths,” Wyatt said. “You always have to let them know: ‘Don’t interact with the players. When we don’t have the ball, step back out of the way. Don’t get in the way of the coaches coaching the game, or the officials.’”

Former Auburn ball boy Jake Longenecker did his best to behave. But he sometimes couldn’t help himself during his time with the Tigers in the mid-2010s.

“I was kind of a little s—,” he said. “I always found ways to be a smart-ass, I’ll tell you that much.”

Longenecker typically stayed busy when Auburn was on offense. But he had plenty of time for tomfoolery when the Tigers were on defense and the opposing team was responsible for running balls.

“(The opponent is) signaling in plays and I was always aware of where I was standing and sometimes I would try to, on purpose, stand in front of the people calling in the plays,” said Longenecker, the son of two Auburn graduates and a lifelong fan of the program. “They would never like that. They would shove you out of the way and I’d be like, ‘Yeah, I know what I’m doing. I know what I’m doing. So go for it.’”

Scott Cochran, the former strength and conditioning coach at Alabama and special teams coordinator at Georgia, had a similar sense of humor. When Auburn played the Crimson Tide, Cochran would often punch the ball out of Longenecker’s hands.

“And he would just be like, ‘Ball security!’” said Longenecker, who works in marketing at James Madison. “He was just joking. (But) it didn’t hurt any less. … I was like, ‘Man, he really works out.’”

Some head coaches enjoy interacting with the opposing team’s ball boys. Others ignore them.

“You’ll get into conversations with coaches on the visiting team sideline,” said Bradley “Spider” Caldwell, a former equipment manager for three decades at Penn State. “Like, (former Ohio State coach) John Cooper one time, he leaned over to one of my managers and he says, ‘Who’s that No. 24 out there?’ So the manager told him who he was. He was a defensive back. (Cooper) says, ‘Yeah, that kid’s not very good. Tell Joe (Paterno) that kid’s not very good.’”

Auburn coach Hugh Freeze doesn’t get into deep conversations with ball boys but likes to thank them for the job they do and will often take a jab about their head coach’s “awful” golf game. Arkansas coach Sam Pittman said ball boys are “always good kids” and bring “special meaning” to the game. But he likes to jokingly tell them before the game starts to “stay the hell out of my way.” San Jose State’s Ken Niumatalolo loves to say hello and ask them about their majors.

And when Clemson hosted Louisiana Tech in 2022, Shirley remembers Bulldogs coach Sonny Cumbie jokingly asking him what plays the Tigers were about to run after they built a double-digit lead in the second half.

“He said it in a way that I could tell that he knew I didn’t actually know. So I just said we were running it, like as a joke,” Shirley said. “And then he actually yelled out to his team that it was a run, also as a joke kind of thing. It was pretty funny.”

Vanderbilt coach Clark Lea said there have been a couple of instances when an opposing ball boy has gotten chippy on the sidelines, although that seems to be the exception and not the norm.

“It’s one of those things that may not always make sense, but it’s how we do business,” he said, referring to the oddity of having a couple of representatives from the opponent on your sideline. “Most times when there is or has been (an issue) it resolves pretty quickly.”

Missouri coach Eli Drinkwitz said opposing ball boys can be distracting, but he always tries to be respectful. Ole Miss coach Lane Kiffin said he doesn’t really notice them.

Both coaches used to be ball boys themselves — Drinkwitz starting as a freshman in high school and Kiffin manning the sidelines as a teenager when his father, Monte, coached linebackers for the New York Jets and Minnesota Vikings.

“It was actually a really cool experience,” Kiffin said. “We had to be on the other sidelines for half the game and — I was just telling this story the other day — Mike Ditka’s over there and Jim Harbaugh and Walter Payton.

“I always wanted to come up with a system because I could hear (the opposing team’s) plays over there, but my dad would be on the other sidelines coaching defense for the other team, for the Vikings. And I always thought, ‘I wonder if you could come up with a system where if I heard the play I could tell him the plays somehow.’”

When Steve Spurrier was the coach at Florida, one of Wyatt’s Vanderbilt ball boys asked the Head Ball Coach if he could have his visor.

“He said, ‘Kid, you’ve got a lot of balls. But no. You can’t have my visor,’” Wyatt recalled. “That was really funny.”

At the 2023 Gator Bowl, a Kentucky player offered to exchange his jersey for Shirley’s Clemson pullover.

“I was thinking about that the entire time, the entire game. Like how funny would it be if I came back (to the Clemson bus) with a (Kentucky) jersey?” Shirley said.

One of Wyatt’s favorite memories is from an away game at Ole Miss years ago.

“I was really short on help that day, so I had … one of our policemen running balls — not in uniform, but he was an off-duty policeman,” Wyatt said. “Well, he’s a great big guy. He was like 6-5, 300-plus pounds. So before the game, the officials always meet with the ball boys. They have a meeting to tell them how they want things done.

“Well, he looks up and he goes, ‘OK. You’re the oldest and the largest ball boy I’ve ever seen.’ And James is the guy that’s doing it. He goes, ‘Well look here, ref, don’t start no s— and there won’t be any.’ So it’s a grown man running balls telling the referee that. The referee got a real good kick out of it.”

Nowadays, all teams have their own ball boys working both sidelines, regardless of whether they’re home or away. But in Caldwell’s early days at Penn State, the home team often provided managers to run balls for both teams.

Such was the case in the fall of 1989 when Penn State traveled to upstate New York.

“So we’re playing Syracuse and it’s right before halftime and we’re driving. We’re in field goal range,” Caldwell said. “But we had a little bit more time on the clock and so coach Paterno wanted to get a little bit closer to make it a short kick.”

The Nittany Lions put one more play in — a 5-yard hitch from quarterback Tony Sacca to the tight end. But Sacca threw an interception. Paterno was not pleased.

“He’s yelling at the quarterback, ‘Why did you throw that ball?!’” Caldwell said, imitating Paterno’s distinct voice. “(Sacca) was notorious for excuses. So he’s like, ‘Coach, the football was wet.’”

Caldwell didn’t see the interception. He left the sidelines a few minutes earlier to prepare the locker room for halftime. So when Paterno stormed over to Caldwell in the locker room and demanded answers — specifically, why the football was wet — Caldwell was caught off guard.

“I said, ‘Well, the Syracuse managers are running the footballs,’” Caldwell said. “(Paterno said), ‘What do you mean the Syracuse managers are running the footballs? You’ve gotta get somebody on those. We can’t have that.’ I’m like, ‘OK, Coach, OK.’ And the whole team’s in there now. They’re getting ready to do halftime adjustments and Joe storms out of the room and all of the team’s looking at me and the coaches are standing there and one of the coaches says, ‘Football? Wet? How can a football be wet when we’re playing inside the Carrier Dome?’

“I never even thought about it. So I’m looking over at Sacca like, ‘I’m gonna kill you, you son of a gun.’”

Since that game, Penn State has traveled with eight managers (up from six), with two designated to run balls on the other team’s sideline.

“To (Sacca’s) defense, I guess our center was a sweater,” Caldwell said, laughing. “He did sweat a lot and it was pretty hot in the Carrier Dome … (but) I beg to differ.”

Ball boys may not be blue-chip recruits, but don’t underestimate their athleticism — and fearlessness. This crew is scrappy.

Longenecker, a former high school linebacker, went viral during Auburn’s 2014 game against Arkansas when he somehow kept pace with Tigers wide receiver Melvin Ray on a 49-yard touchdown reception.

Longenecker found out during a weather delay later that afternoon that a clip of his “exploits” had already amassed 4 million views on Vine, the former social media platform. ESPN tweeted out the play, as well.

“Melvin and I had a chuckle about it. I think I did, like, one interview at the time and they asked me why my high school coach never put me at running back,” Longenecker said. “I was like, ‘Because I was slow.’ And I meant it. I still am. It was something that looked good on camera there for like 10 yards.”

Frankie Grizzle-Malgrat, better known as “Red Lightning,” is arguably the most famous ball boy in college football history. He first went viral in the early 2010s when TV cameras caught him sprinting down the sidelines to celebrate a Florida State touchdown.

The man. The myth. The legend.@FSUFootball‘s Red Lightning ⚡️⚡️ pic.twitter.com/76foBPRfk9

— ACC Network (@accnetwork) June 27, 2020

But he may be remembered more fondly for never backing down when he sensed a Florida State player needed his help.

“When someone messes with your brother, you go to their aid,” Grizzle-Malgrat said. “And you don’t really think about the consequences. … You just hope for the best.”

Grizzle-Malgrat is 5 foot 8 … with shoes on. But when former FSU quarterback Jameis Winston threw an interception against Oklahoma State in 2014 and found himself surrounded by Cowboys players — one of whom hit him in the face mask — Grizzle-Malgrat muscled his way in to defend his guy and helped pull the All-American QB out of the tussle.

“I’m a lot, lot smaller than a bunch of them dudes, but you don’t think about it,” Grizzle-Malgrat said, adding that his biggest fear was always getting his glasses broken. “Oklahoma State, one of the big defensive linemen, he elbowed me in the back of the head.”

Similarly, he was there to help Winston up when the quarterback took a late hit against Duke in the 2013 ACC Championship Game.

“Just know that I’m there for you and I’m there to help you up,” Grizzle-Malgrat said. “I’ve got your back.”

Niumatalolo can remember one of his 5-foot-9 ball boys at Navy jumping into a skirmish to help a player in a bowl game on the opposite sideline.

“I said, ‘What happened over there? Did you get in the fight?’ He said, ‘No, Coach, I had to jump in there and try to save so-and-so,’” Niumatalolo said. “I said, ‘Good for you, man! You’re standing in for our players?’ These are small, tiny kids jumping in there trying to fight.”

During Wyatt’s time at Vanderbilt, the Commodores actually needed help from law enforcement on a trip to Arkansas.

“One of my ball boys comes across the field and tells me, ‘Hey, I’ve got a problem. Their strength coach is grabbing me and pushing me around, saying I’m in the coach’s way and all that,’” Wyatt said. “So we had to get the state trooper to remove the strength coach from Arkansas’ sideline.”

And sometimes, there’s even drama between the home and visiting ball boys.

“We were playing at UT (in 2005) and we won the game on a basically last-minute touchdown,” Wyatt said. “We had the ball that won the game for our quarterback (Jay Cutler). We were gonna keep it. And the (Tennessee) ball boy tried to take it and our ball boy ran across the back of the end zone and tackled him. It was pretty funny.”

For as serious as the job can be, it’s ultimately the fun memories that ball boys take with them.

Vest, now in his second year of law school at Samford, had an unforgettable conversation with a group of Ohio State defensive linemen in the second half of the 2022 Peach Bowl, right as the game was coming down to the wire.

“They were asking where all the girls were at,” he said, laughing.

Grizzle-Malgrat, who is now an equipment manager for Florida State’s softball and soccer teams, was at a bar in Virginia Beach for his cousin’s birthday in 2019 when a group of locals recognized him. Even 10 years later, he still fields autograph and photo requests in the grocery store or at a restaurant.

Vest recalls a different sort of interaction with fans at Tennessee.

“In Knoxville in 2021, we even had fans moon us from the stands,” he said.

As Longenecker said, the job isn’t always glamorous. It’s often thankless work that involves long hours filled with laundry, unpredictable weather and endless little tasks.

“(But) I’m alive. I’m healthy. And I’m happy. So I wouldn’t change it for anything in the world,” he said.

Perhaps Dan Leben, a former Vanderbilt manager, summed it up best.

“It is,” he said, “a ridiculously fun thing to do.”

(Illustration: Eamonn Dalton / The Athletic; Photos: Clemson Athletics, Dannie Walls / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images, Georgia Athletics)