Article about David Ball(Bears tryout)

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Always sure-handed, never a sure thing

Just as he did in college, WR Ball aims to hurdle doubts about his speed

David Haugh
Published May 6, 2007

To hear the locals, receiver David Ball dropped passes at New Hampshire about as often as the state holds presidential primaries: once every four years.

Both occasions are considered newsworthy events around Durham, N.H

So it made an impression Friday when the only surefire Hall of Famer at this weekend's Bears rookie mini-camp -- Ball is a shoo-in for the College Football Hall of Fame, right? -- let the first two passes slip through his gloved hands.

"I wasn't nervous," Ball insisted later.

Sure looked it. But the harmless drops represented a bad start to an otherwise good first day for Ball, an intriguing long shot despite a college resume big enough to need a binder.

Ball eventually settled down to remove doubts about his hands, but he still must answer questions about his quickness and ability to get off the line against NFL cornerbacks.

Scouts stayed away from Ball, who broke Jerry Rice's Division I-AA record for touchdown catches, due to a below-average 40 time of 4.66 seconds, which he attributed to a flare-up of tendinitis in his knee. Curious, the Bears invited the 6-foot-1-inch, 201-pounder to see for themselves after not drafting a receiver.

"There are always exceptions to the rule, and I'd say he's an exception to the rule and has been all his life," Bears coach Lovie Smith said of Ball, a walk-on at New Hampshire. "What's the first thing a receiver has to do? Catch the ball. He catches the ball. He has good hands, and we got a chance to see that [Friday]."

The Bears got a chance to judge a player in person those at Halas Hall knew little about other than he had broken Rice's record. In the process, they also discovered a nickname likely to stick if he does.

"At the East-West game, guys started calling me Uncle Ben," Ball said.

Uncle Ben?

"Yeah," Ball said with a wry smile. "You know, white rice. Get it?"


A winning work ethic

In 1988, New Hampshire coach Sean McDonnell was an offensive graduate assistant coach for Boston College. A hard-working wide receiver with below-average speed and above- average hands named Tom Waddle was one of the Eagles' top players that year. He didn't get drafted the next spring either but became one of the Bears' best finds and most reliable receivers in the early 1990s, known for making the tough catch.

"David Ball's hands are better than Tom's were," McDonnell said.

But McDonnell understands if it takes a while for Bears coaches to trust Ball. He didn't either at first and invited Ball to walk on rather than offering him a scholarship.

Ball had come to New Hampshire from tiny Orange, Vt., (pop. 965), on a partial track scholarship after setting a state high jump record of 6-8 1/2 that still stands. But football?

Former assistant Steve Stetson, now the head coach at Division III Hamilton College, recruited Ball and compared him to former Indianapolis Colts receiver Bill Brooks, another former high jumper-turned-football player. McDonnell didn't buy it.

"I had the same reservations then that pro scouts do now: speed, strength, quickness," McDonnell said. "It took him about three days on campus to show me I had made a good mistake."

It took one game into Ball's career for him to start influencing game plans. After McDonnell called an unsuccessful trick play at the end of a close loss, Stetson remembered having to settle down the wide receiver as he approached the head coach.

"David doesn't lack confidence, and he walked over to [McDonnell] coming off the field and says, 'What were you doing? You should have thrown it up for me, and I'd have made the play,' " Stetson said. "The next Thursday at practice, in a similar situation, David pulled one down over about four guys, and [McDonnell] comes over to me and says, 'Jeez, maybe he was right.' "

Since becoming New Hampshire's go-to receiver early that first season, Ball had a Division I-AA record-tying 23 games of 100 yards receiving, caught a record 58 TD passes and became only the third player in school history to have his number retired.

After he broke Rice's record, the former Mississippi Valley State and San Francisco 49ers star interrupted an interview Ball was doing on Sirius Satellite Radio to congratulate him.

"I firmly believe things will work out for you," Rice told Ball.

Count Northwestern coach Pat Fitzgerald among the believers too. In New Hampshire's shocking 34-17 victory over Fitzgerald's Wildcats last September, Ball caught two TD passes and looked like a guy whose talent would translate in any conference.

"His ability in the quick [passing] game makes it tough to play against him, and his great leaping ability makes him tremendous in the red zone," Fitzgerald said. "He maximized all the tools he had."


Chip on his shoulder

Maximizing his potential in college still failed to sway any of the 32 NFL teams enough to spend a draft pick on Ball. It didn't matter if he had scored 58 TDs or 29 on the Wonderlic test.

Fearing the worst on the final day of last weekend's draft, Ball played Wiffle ball outside his parents' house hoping the call that never came. Near the end of the seventh round, with about 10 picks left, an official for a Canadian Football League team called to see if Ball would be interested in crossing the border to cross the end zone for a living. He wasn't.

The Bears, Jets, Chiefs and Jaguars contacted Ball on Sunday night to offer the standard contract for undrafted free agents.

"It's nothing that's going to keep me down," Ball said. "I realize I have a great opportunity here with a franchise that has a lot of history."

Before Ball ever gets the chance to wear a Bears uniform beyond training camp at Bourbonnais, he will have to find ways to separate from cornerbacks pressing him at the line of scrimmage. He added 15 pounds of muscle since last season with that specific goal in mind.

One NFL executive who scouted Ball predicted he would be too slow to ever shake man-to-man coverage. It also worked against Ball that he probably didn't face a cornerback in games better than the one he faced every day in practice, Bears fifth-round pick Corey Graham.

Until Ball shows that his ability to catch anything thrown his way makes up for other shortcomings, he knows he will continue to catch flak for his speed.

"I look deceiving on film and slower than I really am," Ball said. "I think I showed that [Friday], and hopefully they'll see that by the end of training camp. I definitely have something to prove and come here carrying a little bit of a chip on my shoulder."

As long as it doesn't slow him down.
 

Bear Backer

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I hope that he and Hass are given a shot to really earn themselvespositions with the Bears. We have a terrible history of drafting Wide Recievers so hopefully these guys will be a breath of fresh air in that turn out to be steals that no one else wanted.


Our wide reciever situation is pretty grim other than Berrian. Other than himwe have Moose who is overrated to begin withand almost washed up, is starting to become mr stone hands for a guy who is supposed to be a possession reciever, Bradley who is the typical pampered blacklete, who seems to only put out an effort if the mood strikes him. Then there is a question of his health and guts. The guy is a panzy and I believe he has milked his injuries for all they are worth. After him it doesn't get much better,Currie has been a total waste and seems to have madevery littleprogress, Davieshas been the most productive of anyone besides Berrian and the overrated Moose, butis ashort guy and doesn't really possess any stand out abilities like speed or hands and isn't the best at running routes. If Ball and Hass are not given a real shot tobattle forsome of these guys positions it will be real crime. Edited by: Bear Backer
 

Don Wassall

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Ball's confidence and tenacity is admirable. It's pretty sickening that he and Mike Hass are most likely battling each other to be the fifth or sixth receiver on the Bears with the other one cut. And that's envisioning one of the goodscenarios -- after all the Saints cut both Hass and Chase Lyman (and Chris Horn) last season.


In a non-CasteNFL, Ball and Hass would both be starters on the Bears or another team, or at least be given a fair chance to become starters,rather than typecast asclipboard carryers and training camp fodder.
 

White Mike

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"At the East-West game, guys started calling me Uncle Ben," Ball said.

Uncle Ben?

"Yeah," Ball said with a wry smile. "You know, white rice. Get it?"

I wonder if it's PC to call a great black QB a "white-Montana"?
 

Don Wassall

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White Mike said:
"At the East-West game, guys started calling me Uncle Ben," Ball said.

Uncle Ben?

"Yeah," Ball said with a wry smile. "You know, white rice. Get it?"

I wonder if it's PC to call a great black QB a "white-Montana"?


Ifa black QBwascalled "Black Montana"coming out of a major program, he'd getat leastsixyears as a starter to prove himself, ala Mikey Vick and Kordell Stewart.


Keith Poole wasnicknamed "White Rice" when he played for Arizona State. His quarterback, Jake Plummer, was a first round draft choice and was that ultra-rare white football player hyped by the media for a long time and kept as a starterdespite chronically underachieving. But in reality it was Poole who was in large part responsible for Plummer's success.


Poole on the other hand was taken near the end of the draft and always treated by the NFL as some sort of pariah. The only explanation for it was his incredible talent, which the Caste NFL couldn't figure out how to deal with. The only exception was in 1999, when Saints head coach Mike Ditka gavePoole a fair amount of playing time -- and Poole responded by leading theNFL in average yards per reception that season. The next season it was back to the bench, then kicked around from team to team, and then quickly out of the league altogether.


Wide receiver is so patently a position that should be about three-fourths white at the professional level, very close to the overall white proportion of playersfound in organized football upuntil their sudden, mysterious, never-deviating disappearancein I-A college ball and the NFL.Edited by: Don Wassall
 

Leonardfan

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Currie was released by the Bears
smiley32.gif
 
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Uncle Ben huh?

I find this to be very humourous, considering that many of the NFL's black recievers are so dark, if they attended night-school, they'd be marked "absent".Edited by: Ground Fighter
 

Don Wassall

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Here's another one:



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<TD vAlign=top align=left>Ball making a big splash in mini-camp

May 8, 2007



By Tom Haley Herald Staff </TD></TR>
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Possibly no other player who wasn't drafted has collected the publicity of Spaulding High/University of New Hampshire graduate David Ball. Heck, many players who were drafted haven't received this big a slice of publicity.

Ball was the object of a column by Bradd Biggs in the May 5 edition of the Chicago Sun-Times and of another by David Haugh the next day in the Chicago Tribune.

Some of it is the curiosity factor. People want to know how good a kid from small town Vermont and Division I-AA UNH can be after breaking the great Jerry Rice's record for Division I-AA touchdown receptions.

But another part of what makes this such a good story is that the kid is just plain good and has been turning some heads since signing a contract and reporting to the Bears' rookie mini-camp.

Head coach Lovie Smith was quoted in the Tribune article as saying, "There are always exceptions to the rule and I'd say he's an exception to the rule and has been all his life. What's the first thing a receiver has to do? Catch the ball. He catches the ball. He has good hands and we got a chance to see that."

Smith made the comment Friday as part of his evaluation of Ball during a workout.

Many Vermont high school football fans watched Ball on TV in the East-West all-star game this past season. He went over a defender and made an unbelievable catch, using the vertical jump that made him a state champion in the high jump at Spaulding. He also had the presence of mind to realize he was now playing by NFL rules, scrambling to his feet after hitting the ground with the ball to gain additional yardage.

It was the highlight reel play of the game.

But the East-West event also gave Haugh a priceless anecdote for his column. The players at the all-star game gave Ball the nickname of Uncle Ben. Uncle Ben? You know, as in Uncle Ben's white rice. Get it: white Rice.

Hamilton College head football coach Steve Stetson was the head coach at Hartwick College when he was interested in Ball. He made a trip to Spaulding High to watch him play basketball in an effort to gauge his athleticism.

"I tried to compare him to someone else I knew because that's what I do," Stetson said. "I started getting goose bumps. He reminded me of Billy Brooks who played at Boston University when I coached there. Billy Brooks had an eight-year career in pro football.

"David jumped higher than Billy."

Ball moved on to Worcester Academy for a year and Stetson joined the New Hampshire coaching staff. It was not an easy sell, but he convinced UNH head coach Seam McDonnell to bring Ball aboard.

"Nothing David Ball does surprises me," Stetson said. "I think he is going to make it in the NFL and I think he is going to make it big.

"He can catch the ball with anybody alive.

"The question is can he get off a jam and can he do it against NFL guys?

"He isn't going to run by people, but David is wide open when he's covered."

Stetson was referring to Ball's ability to catch the ball in heavy traffic and the grab in the East-West Shrine Game was a classic example.

"I give the Bears a lot of credit for bringing him to camp," Stetson said.

It was in 2001 when the Vermont Senior Bowl became a part of the Vermont high school football landscape. There were plenty of skeptics and they had a point: Wouldn't each season be a gamble with the weather? The game is played on the third weekend of November after the state championship games had closed out the season.

But the game has thrived with good-sized crowds watching exciting games ever since.

Ball was in that inaugural game in 2001. He caught five passes, most in traffic, for 80 yards.

Like the Vermont Senior Bowl, David Ball has had skeptics. A slow time for receivers (4.66 seconds) in the 40-yard dash caused scouts to back off and therein lies the reason his name was not called during the draft.

But Ball is silencing the skeptics with his work in Chicago.

A career at UNH that saw him snare 58 TD catches and amass 4,655 yards seems to be worth more than any notation from somebody's stopwatch after all.

"I think he will make it in the NFL, I don't care how fast he is," Stetson said. "They can improve his speed. The question is, can he get off a jam?"

Contact Tom Haley at tom.haley@rutlandherald.com
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White Mike

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Ground Fighter said:
Uncle Ben huh?

I find this to be very humourous, considering that many of the NFL's black recievers are so dark, if they attended night-school, they'd be marked "absent".
smiley36.gif
LMFAO
I see teeth and eyes, I think we're ok.
 

Jimmy Chitwood

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for many people, the biggest knock on Ball (aside from his 40 time) was his level of competition... disregard for a moment that Jerry Rice played against an even lower level of competition and focus on a different aspect of the story.


EVERY day in practice, David went up against a cornerback who was drafted! and beat him like a drum. your competition doesn't get much better than that!


this whole situation is a joke that isn't funny. just like the whole Mike Hass hoax. both of these cats can flat out play. there should be news stories nation-wide reporting this instead of the sham that was the Imus outrage and the Duke Lacrosse lynching. yet these stories get virtually NO notice at all.
 
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The double standards that permeate the race debate have the easiest way when it comes to sports since sports are a throwaway for the cognitive elite who feel no competition.
 

Don Wassall

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This is not good news for whateverminiscule chance David Ball and Mike Hass have of making the Bears:
Bears to shake things up, move Hester to offense


Devin Hester may be in the end zone a lot more next season.


According to the Bears' official Web site, head coach Lovie Smith revealed Monday that the All-Pro return specialist will switch from defense to offense beginning with this weekend's full-squad minicamp.


"I think Devin Hester is one of the most exciting players in the NFL with his hands on the football," Smith said. "I think he would be an excellent defensive back also. We just feel that this is in the best interest of us and him for him to achieve his full potential as a football player."


The Bears plan to work Hester in a role similar to how the Saints utilized Reggie Bush last season.. . .


Rest of article: http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=2870416
 

backrow

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there goes Hass and Ball... now i do hope Bears release them so that they can have a shot at playing somewhere else...
 

White Mike

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Hester has came out and said that he doesn't want to play offence. Did anyone think Ball was actually going to get a fair shot? This is the same Lovie Smith who called Brock Forsey a team manager. IMO Smith saw potential in David and had to do anything he could to keep the white man down. Regardless of how much more potential David has then Devon, he will never get an equal shot.
 
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