BEIJING-In his 15 years with the U.S. national men’s volleyball team setter Lloy Ball has been a reliable source of world class play and comic relief.
Ball was asked shortly before the Sydney Olympics how the son of parents who both stood under 6-feet produced a son who grew to 6-feet-8?
“The milkman in my hometown is 7-feet tall,” Ball responded without missing a beat.
Ball’s three previous Olympic appearances, however, were no laughing matter.
At 24 he was the youngest player on a U.S. team that was ninth at the 1996 Games in Atlanta, a finish that left the U.S. program reeling after medaling in the consecutive Olympics. Four years later Ball and the U.S. just missed a medal, finishing fourth in Sydney. The U.S. slipped to fifth in Athens.
So not surprisingly no one seemed happier than Ball when the Anaheim-based Team USA locked up a medal and a shot at gold in Sunday’s final by upsetting Russia 3-2 in a 2008 Olympic Games semifinal Friday.
“It’s been a long journey for me and a lot of the guys, who’ve put in a decade to get to this point,” said Ball, now 36, who was talked into rejoining the U.S. team by head coach Hugh McCutcheon in 2007 after a three-year absence. “I’ve been dreaming about this since I was four-years-old. I said at the beginning (of the Olympic tournament) that winning or losing wasn’t going to affect me. But it sure is going to be nice to have a medal in the house.”
Ball was asked how he was going to celebrate.
“I’m going to Hooters, awesome,” he said.
He was kidding. We think.
