Can a middle-aged man be considered a ball"boy"?

The world’s oldest and tallest ballboy, a 52-year-old, 6-foot-6 Mt. Lebanon gent named Tim Feeney, has been under the Steelers’ employ for more than three and a half decades – and for, more important, seven Super Bowls.

He’s on his way to Tampa to work his third consecutive.

For those first four, the teen-ager wasn’t allowed to go. Not by his parents. By his hoops coaches.

"I couldn’t get to any of those with high school and college basketball," Feeney was saying before he left behind his family and team sports apparel business. "I’ll never forget, I went into ask [Mt. Lebanon’s oft-cantankerous Dick] Black in 1974. . . . He said, ‘Don’t even bother asking, because if you go, you’re cut.’ And at that time in Mt. Lebanon, about 85 guys tried out for 15 spots."

Feeney’s friends used to tease him incessantly after Super Bowl XXX that he warmed up Neil O’Donnell there and caused all those bloody interceptions. Todd Haley, the Arizona Cardinals offensive coordinator who worked with Feeney on the Three Rivers Stadium sidelines as an Upper St. Clair High student, "He taught me the ropes. But he never would let me catch the field goals."