BLACKSBURG (BP) -- 5:00 P.M. Blacksburg Ballers owner, Mike, boards the team jet after the team's victory over the Mt. Oread Hawk Stars, 25-9. He sits on the plane with his coaching staff contemplating next week's gameplan versus the Ottawa Chiefs.
But this is no ordinary team that just came back from an ordinary football game.
The Blacksburg Ballers are trying to complete a perfect season and after the Mt. Oread victory, are only 2 wins away from attaining that milestone. They beat teams that experts said they shouldn't beat. They managed to come out from the veil of mediocrity that had plagued them the last 2 seasons and come full force.
But how could an unknown team from a rural town in Virginia do such a thing?
"It's simple really," Ballers owner Mike said who sat down with the Blacksburg Press for a one on one interview. "I just tell my guys what you put in as far as work ethic, you get out in success. And a lot of people overlook this very simple concept and think they have to have the flashiest players and the most seasoned coaching staff. This has complicated the game to the point that they don't understand what determines a great team, and in my opinion that's commitment and work ethic."
The Ballers have certainly not been one of the most talented or flashiest teams in the Canadian leagues. When owner Mike bought the Blacksburg Ballers in early season 1 of the inaugural Goal Line Blitz Football League, he had a team that was in shambles.
"The stadium was falling apart, we had no coaching staff, and we had guys on the team who just did not want to put forth the effort in order to become better players," Mike said.
But after making a bold trade that brought over an unproven backup, Khari Jones, things started to click. Jones came over from the Mexican Hitmen of the USA AA League. He was involved in a 2 QB system that the Hitmen were trying out, however it was not what Jones wanted so he requested a trade. Mike immediately jumped on the opportunity to get a solid QB in Jones that he knew thru some dealings as an agent with the Hitmen.
"It wasn't pure chance like some think," Mike said. "Khari was on the same team as a client I had and I thought the guy was terrific. I don't know why the Hitmen decided to go with the other guy as I didn't think he was a long-term solution, and even though he was still very raw I saw potential in him [Khari Jones]."
And Mike grabbed up some other players that had potential as well in the free agent market and thru trades, eventually filling out the entire squad with hand-picked players. The team then went a surprising 9-7 in their first season and made the playoffs. But they lost to the Drinkin Hellraisers by a narrow margin in the first round.
The next season the Ballers improved upon their previous record and went 10-6 making the playoffs for the second straight year. But were ousted in the first round again, this time by arch-rival Thunder Bay.
"Those first 2 seasons really taught me alot about managing a team," Mike said who now has a cumulative 29-11 record as the Ballers owner not including scrimmage games that took place during season 2. "I started out with a lot of guys I didn't know and I was essentially on my own. I did all the signings, trades, and game planning by myself which was obviously very time-consuming. After working 21 hour days I said to myself that I needed some guys to help me out so I got a few people I knew to help me manage this team. Now they make up a great core of personnel that I have and help me immensely with doing a lot of work with the team."
And those core personnel would be his right hand man rbetesta and key advisor kb. Both helped Mike transform the team from a slew of misfits to a 14-0 team looking at its first perfect season.
"It's amazing to see the drastic improvement," Mike explained. "The progress this team has made is far beyond my expectations and we just keep getting better. I attribute a lot of that to my coaching staff, but certainly the majority falls on the great group of players I have."
Despite the major strides Blacksburg has made and its dominance this year, other teams and experts around the league have yet to fully recognize Blacksburg as a contender.
The weariness stems from the East/West division of the league the Ballers are in. It is commonly believed among scouts and owners that the West is almost "JV" in comparison to the East. One scout even going so far as to say that all the teams in the West should be "demoted back down to Canadian AA". As a team in the West this has hampered the credibility of the Ballers season.
Another criticism is that of the playoff drought the Ballers are in. The Blacksburg curse has caused concern among many experts who claim this is more than a fluke and is attributed to the coaching staff paralleling that of "Marty ball". In essence they would do things in the playoffs that they would not normally do during the regular season and thus mess up their rhythm.
Despite these criticisms, Mike is still confident in his team's chances to go far this year.
"I look at the squad right now and we've got some of the hardest working guys in the league, we've got a great coaching staff who gameplans as good as any team in the league, and we've got a desire to win that's huge right now. I just can't see us repeating another great season with another disappointing early playoff exit."
Whatever the case may be, the Ballers are close to history and the next 2 games will determine whether or not that will happen. The playoffs will also determine if the Ballers can survive the first round and are not just a regular season juggernaut who shrivels up during the playoffs.
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Game Ball
DE, Speed McLovin
Speed had a tremendous game racking up 9 tackles, 3 sacks, and 2 tackles for loss. This certainly returns Speed back to his season 2 form in which he accumulated 11 sacks for the season. Great job Speed and the rest of the team!
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