Plenty to learn when on the court in new role

By David Berman
Special to The Advertiser

Editor's note: Volunteering as a self-described "middle-age ball boy" at last fall's Big Island Championships had such an impact on David Berman that he is writing a short story about it. Below is an excerpt of the story, which is now 24 pages and growing:

"The totality of my instructions couldn't have lasted two minutes. Take a position in the corners at either end of the court or at the net, wait until a point ended, collect the dead ball and throw or roll it to the next ball boy upstream until it was requested by the player about to serve. Offer the ball by holding it up with elbows bent at right angles — otherwise, stand quietly, watchfully, with hands folded behind the back. That was it.

It didn't feel like enough instruction or training to me, but it was all I was given.

Paul Stuart directed me to join a match in progress and disappeared to other duties. I put on a hat and shirt and joined a ball crew of three nearly identical girls, none of whom could have been older than 10 years old. It felt like I was in some archetypical dream where you have to go back to grade school despite being all grown up long ago. The girls all knew what they were doing, unlike me, so I meekly followed their lead and example, like some misfit giant in a Lilliputian fable.

My main goal for quite a while was to not screw up. I volunteered to take a position in the corner behind the player receiving serve, since I deduced that was where the least responsibility lay. All I had to do was grab the ball after a missed serve or rally and toss it to the ball girl at the net. No bending of elbows or relating to the players. It was the bottom of the ball person totem pole; a perfect place for a 44-year-old novice like me to start.

It wasn't all that easy, even there. The main trouble was I couldn't help thinking I was playing tennis. My instinct was to be proactive, to anticipate an out ball so I could retrieve it and send it along as quickly and efficiently as possible. That's the necessary attitude when playing tennis.

You can't wait for the ball to arrive before you react to it. You have to get to the right place and get ready to hit before the ball arrives.

The only trouble was, I wasn't on the court in my usual role as an active player. And also, unlike what I was used to on the public courts of Honolulu, these players almost never made a mistake.

They would pound the ball hard, but it wouldn't fly out long, like it would surely do sooner rather than later in my world. Or they'd slice the ball low, but it wouldn't go into the net like I expected.

No matter what the two women playing did, the ball would always land in. I kept jumping to anticipate a shot that was obviously out, but the damn ball kept landing in. It was like playing that hand slap game we used to play as kids where you keep flinching trying to avoid getting slapped. I had to endlessly repress the urge to get a quick jump on balls that never went out."