Older, wiser Reggie Ball reconnects with Tech

Starts: 49

REGGIE BALL IN TECH RECORD BOOKS

Reggie Ball flashback No. 1: It stands today, 10 years later, as one of the more bizarre passes in the noisy Georgia-Georgia Tech rivalry.

In a desperate fourth-and-21 scramble, just 28 seconds left, down by six, Tech’s Ball threw the lower-case ball out of bounds. As it was, the odds were long that he’d keep that drive alive. But once he lost track of the downs any hope died an agonizing death. Game over.

What exactly is the statute of limitations for such crimes against victory?

Ask Bill Buckner.

Ask Chris Webber.

No one out-lives his worst moments, even those not televised on CBS. You merely paint as many coats as possible over them and hope that people eventually overlook the blemishes. And these days, Ball is slinging a big roller.

Before we get to the now — and the high ground of retrospect — let’s get the old Ball-Bulldogs stuff out of the way.

No, he never beat Georgia in four seasons as a starting quarterback for Tech (2003-06). He lost in some of the most imaginative ways. As a freshman, the levee broke on his emotions and he was carried away in a wave of trash talk before leaving with a concussion. As a senior, he produced one of his worst performances in 49 career starts — a costly fumble, two interceptions, a career-low completion percentage (27.3). A few weeks later, after another tortured outing in the ACC Championship game, he would be declared academically ineligible for the bowl game, the death rattle to the most puzzling of Tech careers.

And there was that fourth-down pass to nowhere his sophomore season. Oh, how the Bulldogs lovers chewed on that bone — imagine, a Tech man who couldn’t count to four. There was plenty of confusion to go around on the Tech sidelines that day, but it was Ball who threw the pass and Ball who had to own the moment.

There are no Switzerlands on the subject of Reggie Ball at Tech. Just as well, for in his mind, neutrality equals insignificance.

“When people talk about what I’ve done, whether they agree with it or not, like it or not, fact is you’re talking about me,” Ball said. “That says enough to me that you even remember my name. I look at it as a glass half full.”

No Tech player of any vintage has quite worked both sides of the barbed DMZ between achievement and disappointment quite like Ball. He never seemed to get significantly better through the years, maybe even backsliding at the end (a condemnation of coaching, perhaps?).

And after it all ended with the dismissal and Ball slipped without comment into the world beyond North Avenue, Mark Bradley wrote in the AJC: “Not many collegians have ever been subjected to this much abuse, both from cackling enemy fans and the supposedly friendly home folks. Not many collegians have ever been as scrutinized by the media.”

Ball was 20 when he threw that ball to the hedges. He is 30 now. There is a whole lot of reason and room for change between those mileposts.

He is a husband, and a father to a 14-month-old son. The dream of playing professionally has been flushed from his system after a couple of injury-shortened attempts in Detroit and one brief, lamentable stint as a Bricktown (Oklahoma City) Brawler of a nothing indoor league.

His scrambling now is solely in the pursuit of an entrepreneurial identity. One moment he might be working with an 11-year-old quarterback on a city park field, the next with a millennial office worker sweating off her weekend in a hot garage gym. He is an eager and experimental businessman, trying to brand himself here and in Michigan.

And almost as much as Ball wants to make himself over into a commercial success, he seeks to reconnect with the Tech community. In a way, the two go hand-in-hand. “I need that exposure, like any other company or self-employed man needs,” he said. “I have to reach back to my people, my resources at Georgia Tech.”

So, who was that speaking recently to a Tech North Atlanta Alumni Club?

Why, none other than Reggie Ball. “A very receptive crew,” he reported back.

With so much major repair work underway, Ball’s legacy is a hard-hat area these days.

Reggie Ball flashback No. 2: "Reggie! Reggie! Reggie!" the students chanted as they lifted their quarterback on their shoulders and bore Ball around Grant Field in the autumn of 2003. The first freshman to start at quarterback for Tech, he was like a conquering emperor returned to Rome. In his first home game, the Yellow Jackets upset Auburn. Down came the goalposts. Up went the quarterback. It was a glorious thing to see.

Let’s load up the other side of the scales here, too.

He led Tech to victories over a third-ranked Miami (2005); beat a ranked Auburn twice; scored as a passer, a rusher and a receiver against North Carolina (2005); threw three touchdown passes in the final five minutes to beat Clemson (2004); was the MVP of the Champs Sports Bowl (end of 2004 season).

“I hate it for him that (never beating Georgia) is all people remember him for. We had a lot of great victories, too,” said Ball’s coach at Tech, Chan Gailey.

It helped more than just a little that he had Calvin Johnson to throw to. Johnson spun the straw of many an errant throw into gold. Still, Ball possessed the physical ability to wow the audience, which only deepened the disappointment in the stands when they went haywire. And he always played hard, sometimes to the brink and beyond of losing control of the moment.

“May have been a better athlete than me,” said Joe Hamilton, the model for the modern Tech quarterback. Where Ball was the subject of much griping among Tech fans, Hamilton, a College Football Hall of Famer, was widely adored. Yet as starting quarterbacks, their victory total is identical (29).

Hamilton, a Jackets recruiting assistant, has emerged as a sort of spirit guide for Ball in his quest to reunite with the Tech clan. “Joe has always been there for me,” Ball said.

“I want him to know that he should come around here more often,” Hamilton said. “And when he does, I’ll introduce him to people like this: ‘Meet Reggie Ball, a great quarterback.’”

The scales may never tip quite that far in Ball’s favor as far as many fans are concerned, but the man being measured said he is comfortable either way.

“I got to be,” Ball said. “Nobody’s going to think I’m a great quarterback in Tech history until I believe it first. Nobody’s going to believe that the good outweighs the bad unless I’m at peace with that first.”

Reggie Ball flashback No. 3: Just a little more than a year ago, Ball held in his arms his newborn son. Roman, he was named. A new life that made made his father rethink his own life. Such a moment can ignite a man.

Ball today is going in a dozen different directions at once.

The reluctant scholar has started over, taking some classes at Atlanta Metropolitan. Hamilton is urging him to return to Tech for a degree.

From their garage gym, he and a partner — to the kind of loud music and gritty lyrics you don’t get at the YMCA spin class — oversee a series of tough, boot camp-style workouts. Written large on the white board this day inside the headquarters of E.F.F.E.C.T Fitness was the command, “Be Awesome Today.”

Having coached briefly at Stephenson High, Ball wanted to expand his reach and began the Reggie Ball Quarterback Academy, prepping young players for college. He spent this season working with one of the top youth programs in town, the Atlanta Vikings.

And if any of the kids should ask about issues beyond mechanics, Ball can dip his bucket in a particularly deep well of experience. He would, for instance, recommend to any young quarterback to try to redshirt his first year and acclimate better than he did. He’d tell them to stretch themselves in the classroom. And to not close themselves off from the media as he did at the end. “I learned so much, it was almost trial and error,” he said.

Now he’s even looking down on Tech games from the press box, doing occasional post-game podcasts.

Ball can trace this burst of activity and self-examination directly to Roman’s birth, a happening that “changed my whole perspective on everything,” he said.

High on the postpartum to-do list was reevaluating his place on the Flats. “One of the things that sort of stuck in my head was that if there is some kind of negative relationship between Reggie Ball and the Georgia Tech fan base, that needs to be extinguished ASAP,” he said. “My son’s going to be an athlete — or at least have the tools to be in athlete in whatever sport. Any lane he chooses, I want Tech to be a valid option for him.

“And every time he comes to watch a game, I want it to be a comfortable feel for him.”

Wouldn’t the karmic joke be on him if one day his talented boy comes to him and proclaims a burning desire to play at Georgia?

The older, wiser Reggie Ball can now bite his lip and process that hypothetical calmly. “If his goal is to go quarterback at Georgia, I’m going to make sure he gets there. It’s a given, my disdain for UGA, but I’m not going to influence anyone else.”

That is the sound of real personal growth.