{"id":553241,"date":"2026-01-22T13:48:20","date_gmt":"2026-01-22T13:48:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/553241\/"},"modified":"2026-01-22T13:48:20","modified_gmt":"2026-01-22T13:48:20","slug":"open-thread-spending-an-afternoon-with-the-spurs-ball-kid","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/553241\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Thread: Spending an afternoon with the Spurs Ball Kid"},"content":{"rendered":"

As longtime readers know, in addition to being a die hard Spurs fan, I am the proud father of a die hard Spurs fan. My twelve-year-old daughter Elizabeth and I most commonly spend our father-daughter dates at the Frost Bank Center. Some memorable outings were Dirk Nowitzki\u2019s farewell game<\/a>, the 2023 NBA Draft, and the Silver & Black Scrimmage.<\/p>\n

But no night beats last Monday against the Utah Jazz.<\/p>\n

For MLK Day, we made our way down to the Frost Bank Center for the mid-afternoon game. This time we had to arrive even earlier as Elizabeth had been chosen to be the Spurs Ball Kid for the game. We signed in with game-ops and then Tre, a wonderful member of the Spurs Hype Squad, escorted us down to the court.<\/p>\n

Walking the hardwood alone was a treat. I caught a smile across her face and some pep in step as we made our way to the Spurs basket.<\/p>\n

For those who haven\u2019t been to a live game, when the Spurs come out for the pregame shoot around, there is an equipment crew. During this time, they are grabbing loose balls and tossing fresh ones out to the players. The Spurs Ball Kid is a role they\u2019ve had as far back as I can remember. A child gets to help the crew distribute balls to the players as they warm up.<\/p>\n

On Monday Elizabeth joined them.<\/p>\n

She was tossing basketballs to corner shooters, one of them being three-point specialist Julian Champagnie, who Elizabeth listed as her favorite player.<\/p>\n

While the in-arena announcement was introducing her, Julian heard his name called as her favorite and his ears perked up.<\/p>\n

She finished the shoot around and then was invited to line up with the players to high five the Spurs starters, amost incredible experience.<\/p>\n

After all that excitement, there was still a game to watch. At the end of the first half, she once again distributed basketballs to the players during their shoot around before the second half commenced.<\/p>\n

The Spurs had a great night. Champagnie scored 13 points hitting 3 threes and grabbing 4 rebounds, both categories of which he is gaining notoriety.<\/p>\n

After the game, he invited Elizabeth down to receive his game-worn jersey, which he\u2019d signed. Due to timing \u2014 the Spurs were heading out immediately after to make the trip to Houston for the second night of a back-to-back \u2014 he wasn\u2019t able to deliver it personally, but we got to thank the crew who she\u2019d been with for both shoot around distributions.<\/p>\n

She played it cool when she saw the jersey, but as we exited the Frost Bank Center she was skipping to the car, the most excited I\u2019d seen her in a long time. Although she was ahead of me, I am pretty sure I heard her singing his name as she danced on in the moonlight.<\/p>\n

Welcome to the Thread. Join in the conversation, start your own discussion, and share your thoughts. This is the Spurs<\/a> community, your Spurs community. Thanks for being here.<\/p>\n

Our community guidelines<\/a> apply which should remind everyone to be cool, avoid personal attacks, not to troll and to watch the language.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As longtime readers know, in addition to being a die hard Spurs fan, I am the proud father…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":553242,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3797],"tags":[7,5842,6,969,474,64068,4075,4074,534],"class_list":{"0":"post-553241","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-san-antonio-spurs","8":"tag-basketball","9":"tag-general","10":"tag-nba","11":"tag-san-antonio","12":"tag-san-antonio-spurs","13":"tag-san-antonio-spurs-discussion","14":"tag-sanantonio","15":"tag-sanantoniospurs","16":"tag-spurs"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nba\/115939069822236097","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=553241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/553241\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/553242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=553241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=553241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nba\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=553241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}