The Biggest Mistake I Never Made How an Indiana boy gave up basketball to become a world-class volleyball player

When he was a high school senior, Lloy Ball disappointed most people in his small Northeast Indiana community by turning down a chance to play basketball for Bobby Knight at Indiana University. Intead, Ball chose to play volleyball for his father at Indiana-Purdue Fort Wayne. Though many people still tell him they thought he made a mistake by not going to IU, Ball won a gold medal in his fourth Olympics at age 36 in 2008. This is the story of how he got there, the places he has seen and the people he has met along the way.

Lloy Ball played in his fourth Olympics in August 2008 as a member of the gold medal-winning United States men’s volleyball team. A native of Woodburn, Indiana, and a former all-American at IPFW, he and his wife Sarah have a son, Dyer, and a daughter, Mya. Ball played more than 400 matches with the U.S. national team and served as the squad’s captain for 10 years. Blake Sebring has been a sportswriter for the Fort Wayne, Indiana, News-Sentinel for 25 years and is also the author of ``Tales of the Komets,’’ ``Legends of the Komets’’ and co-author of the upcoming ``Live from Radio Rinkside: The Bob Chase story.’’