It was around this time [1990] that my sister and I started "ball-boying" tennis matches. My dad is a huge tennis fanatic, and was (and still is) a tennis umpire. He was president of the New England Tennis Umpire Association for several years, so he was constantly running around to different tournaments to umpire. He had started Annsley and I into tennis at the age of six, and both he and we thought it would be a lot of fun to be ball kids. It turned out to be even more fun than we expected. I ball-boyed the Davis Cup when it was in Newport, the Virginia Slims, Volvo (both in Vermont and in New Haven), the Pilot Penn, and a lot of senior ATP tournaments. I ball-boyed for John McEnroe, Michael Chang, Chris Evert, Pam Shriver, Stan Smith, Rod Layer, Andre Agassi, Goran Ivanisevic, Ivan Lendl, Patrick Cash, the Woodbridge-Woodford doubles team, Rae (Nasty) Nastasi, and many other big-name tennis players. Of course, chasing a ball and then giving it to a sweaty tennis player when he asks for it in the scorching heat for hours on end doesn't sound like much fun, but it was. Just being that close to them, getting them water on the change over, and then if they were in a good mood at the end of the night, having them sign the back of my shirt was thrill enough. The added bonus was that if it was a feature match I got to be seen for seconds at a time on T.V. It doesn't get any better than that. My sister and I were ball-kids for about four years before we gave it up, but its provided for some great times and great memories.
-- Jared. Autobiography. 1998.
Jared and Alan - Woodbridge 1997