Quote:
Originally Posted by jTheUmp
The NCAA games around here all have at least 4 ball people (honestly, the softball/women's basketball players seem to be the most attentive... good luck if it's the wrestlers).
Two per sideline, one standing with the LOS official, one near the deep official. Ideally, each one will have one ball for each team. Ball goes OOB, the wing official turns and gets a new ball from the nearest ball person (usually the one nearest the LOS official) and relays it in to me, and the other ball person gets to hunt down the one that went OOB. We can get away with as few as three game balls per team (one per sideline, plus the one in play. For Team B, keep the 3rd ball on the pressbox side, since we always get a new ball from the pressbox side after a change of possession)
Of course, this requires 4 attentive ball persons, and 5 game balls per team... neither of which are going to happen in a high school game.
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That's how our college games go as well although each ball person will have balls for the same team. That way the wing can turn to the right official and reduce the likelihood of getting the wrong ball. If the ball boys have to keep track of which ball belongs to which team they will send the wrong ball in a couple times. But both systems work fine.
We usually have 2 or 3 ball kids on each side for HS games and most teams check 3-5 balls each game so it's definitely possible. It's been that way for my near 20-year experience of officiating HS so we are used to it. It could be hard if you have no ball persons today and each team only checks one ball. But it's definitely doable because there are plenty of kids who would love to do it and each team has 8-10 usable balls. Just go to a practice to know that.