Golden State Warriors' clock operator still living the dream more than 60 years after joining franchise
A young teen who began working as a ballboy for the Warriors when the franchise moved to San Francisco from Philadelphia in 1962 still has a front-row seat six decades later as the team's longtime clock operator.
It was the chance of a lifetime when 13-year-old Jim Maher got a job with the new basketball team in town, even though most San Francisco sports fans' interest was elsewhere.
"It was bad timing. It was the same time that the Giants were in the World Series with the Yankees, so they didn't get a lot of attention," said Maher. "But it was exciting for me because I got to be a ballboy, it was, like, a dream come true for a 13-year-old kid."
Maher didn't expect his dream to last more than a season but he stuck around as a ball boy, with perks that included going to San Francisco's Ocean Beach with NBA legend Wilt Chamberlain.
"Wilt used to come out with his purple Bentley and his two Great Danes and run them on the beach ... and it was quite a sight," said Maher.
He moved from the baseline to the scorer's table in the late 60s.
"That was actually a paid position," said Maher. "The ballboys didn't get paid. We got tips from the trainers and the referees, which turned out to be probably more than what they were paying us for the job on the table."
Back then, Maher did it all, operating everything from the shot clock, scoreboard, and even old-school foul paddles indicating the number of fouls accumulated.
In 1990, Maher took over as the full-time clock operator, while juggling his job at the U.S. Postal Service and raising a family with his longtime wife Joelene. Unlike many NBA players nowadays, there hasn't been a lot of "load management" over his 61 years with the team.
"We had four kids and a full-time job, and I somehow kept this job," said Maher. "It was tough at times, especially driving over to Oakland during rush hour."
Maher says he has only missed about 10 games in the last 25 years, as well as missing about half a season when he was in the Navy in 1969, and a few games when his children were born.
Back full circle at San Francisco's Chase Center arena, Maher has seen and heard it all from opposing players, coaches, and even announcers. He recalled a young Hank Greenwald, then the Warriors' PA announcer before his play-by-play days with the San Francisco Giants, coming to his table's defense during an exchange with former Atlanta Hawks head coach Richie Guerin.
"Hank just goes goes and tells him, 'C'mon Richie, sit down!' So Richie grabbed Hank by his tie and pulled him up out of his seat and said, 'Listen, you do your job and I'll do mine,' and pushed him back down," said Maher. "And so, anytime after that we were playing the Hawks, nobody on the table wore a tie."
Maher meets with the game officials before every game, but one night it didn't end there with the cantankerous longtime ref Joey Crawford.
"Clocks stops in the last minute after a made basket and I stopped it with 1:01 and then started it back up again, and Joey came running by the table and he goes, 'Blankety-blank, clock stops at 1:00, not 1:01!' and he got, you know, on my case," said Maher. "And then the more amazing thing was, after that, he came out, started the third quarter, and he goes, 'Oh Jim, let me apologize, I shouldn't have yelled at you like that.' And the other two officials came over and said, 'He has never apologized to anybody for anything he's yelled at them for.'"
Maher has worked four NBA Finals in other cities but only one with the Warriors back in 1975 because the league now brings in neutral crews, so it's the rare occasion when he gets to watch the games in person as a fan.
After receiving a money clip for the Warriors' first NBA title in '75, he now has four championship rings from the team's dynasty run, along with plenty of experiences he will never forget.
"We would just look at each other on the table sometimes and say, 'This is something special,' or say, 'We're not going to see nothing like this again.'"
Maher said he is not ready for this clock to run out anytime soon.
"It's hard to give it up," said Maher. "I'll probably do it until they kick me out."
