“They made up special shirts here — they’re blue with red lettering and white trim — and they say ‘Boro’s Own Giant’ on the front and have No. 85 and BALLARD on the back,” said Ben Ballard, Jake’s dad.
“They had them at the high school and the Image Market right off Main Street, and the other day they’d already sold over 1,000 of them.
“It’s kinda neat, and I bet a lot of folks will be wearing them on Super Bowl Sunday.”
Today, Ballard and the Giants meet the New England Patriots in Super Bowl XLVI at Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis.
Although the Pats are slightly favored, the Giants — thanks in a big way to the late-game heroics of Ballard — did edge New England 24-20 on Nov. 6 in Foxborough.
Ballard had four catches for 67 yards in that game, including two memorable receptions on the winning drive.
First, he made a leaping 28-yard catch on a desperation, third-down pass by Eli Manning. Then, with 15 seconds left, he caught the 1-yard game-winning touchdown.
It was that performance that prompted a humorous, back-and-forth tweaking between Ballard and a Boston TV crew on the Super Bowl field last Tuesday during Media Day.
“We’re from Boston and we like to have our villains,” the guy with the microphone said with feigned indignation. “You realize you very quickly could become Public Enemy No. 1 in our town after what you pulled in Week 9.”
Seeing Ballard start to grin, the guy snapped: “Wipe that smile off your face as you think back on it.”
Unable to completely ditch his delight, Ballard just nodded: “Yeah, a lot of people remind me of that. A lot say stuff on Twitter. They call me a Patriots Killer. But I don’t listen to it too much. I just got lucky a couple of times.”
The Boston guy wasn’t buying the bit about luck: “We don’t need it to happen twice. You’re not going to pull any of that crap on Sunday again are you?”
“I can’t promise that. We’ll just have to see what happens,” Ballard said.
“You can promise it — you can promise it right now,” the guy said.
When Ballard just beamed, the guy gave one final tongue-in-cheek volley: “I hope you take this in the spirit it is intended. I wish you nothing but the worst on Sunday.”
To that Ballard deadpanned: “I would say I appreciate it ... but I really don’t.”
When the TV crew finally tromped off, Ballard said quietly: “It’s cool to be thought of as a threat.”
And today that’s what Ballard will be, said Giants head coach Tom Coughlin: “He’ll have a huge impact on the game.”
New England almost certainly will concentrate on the Giants’ trio of talented wide receivers — Victor Cruz, Hakeem Nicks and Mario Manningham — and that could make Ballard an enticing target for Manning.
“Our tight ends are not going to get double teamed,” said Giants offensive coordinator Kevin Gilbride. “If they can beat a linebacker, in most cases they’ll have chances to catch the ball and make some big plays.”
Ballard did just that this year until he partially tore the posterior cruciate ligament in his right knee against Washington on Dec. 18 and missed the final two regular-season games.
Up to then he had 38 catches for 604 yards and four touchdowns. Ironically, in his entire four-year career at Ohio State he had just 34 receptions for 377 yards and three scores — all of the touchdowns coming by his sophomore year.
“Yeah, back then that was a little frustrating,” he admitted. “There just weren’t enough footballs to go around.”
A talented family
Ballard was blessed with athletic genes from both his parents.
His dad played college football at Xavier before embarking of a 32-year career as a prep football coach throughout southwest Ohio and including head coaching stints at Fenwick and Waynesville, and 10 years as an assistant at Springboro.
Ballard’s mom, Debby — now a surgical nurse at Good Samaritan Hospital — was such a stellar basketball player at Springboro that she’s in the school’s athletic hall of fame. So is her dad, Gil Burson, one of the school’s all-time hoops hotshots.
Jake’s sister Becky — who played basketball at Franklin College — is in the hall of fame, too. So is Jake.
And Josh Ballard, Jake’s twin brother who happens to be four inches and 45 pounds smaller, was a standout linebacker at Morehead State University. More beefcake than just beef, he has done some modeling and now works in the Miami Valley as a medical sales rep.
When Jake went to OSU, he did get several balls thrown to him his first two seasons, but then — with the emergence of scrambling quarterback Terrelle Pryor — saw his role turned almost solely into a blocking tight end.
“Every offseason it would be the same. The coaches would say, ‘We’re going to focus on getting you the ball and getting you involved,’ but then it never happened,” Ballard said. “But like I’ve said before, we won a lot of games when I was there, so I wouldn’t change a thing.”
But the limited usage did submarine his draft status.
“I didn’t figure I’d get picked, but I still remember draft day,” he said. “I was at a wedding and I kept checking my phone and seeing all these guys from all kinds of schools being taken, and it was very depressing.”
In all, 19 tight ends were chosen in the 2010 draft, but Ballard wasn’t one of them.
The Cleveland Browns and New York both wanted him as a free agent, and he smartly chose the Manning-led Giants.
“There have been some rough patches in my young NFL career,” Ballard said. “I got to New York, got hurt, got cut, got picked up by them again and then was put on the practice squad. I was there most of my last year.”
He finally was signed to the roster and played in just one mid-December game last season. But when starting tight end Kevin Boss left for the Oakland Raiders this past August, Ballard did everything he could to fill that void.
Over the summer, he had put on the extra weight the Giants had suggested and worked out at Ohio State — “all I did was run routes” — with since-departed quarterback Taylor Graham.
“He started the first preseason game this year and he just never looked back after that,” said Jake’s dad, Ben. “As the season went on, he really seemed to win Eli’s trust, and when the balls started coming his way, he caught them.”
Not celebrating yet
When the Giants beat San Francisco in the NFC title game, Ballard called his dad, who had been at the Green Bay game the week before but skipped the 49ers’ trip so Debby could go.
“When I got Dad on the phone, he was more excited than I was,” Ballard said with a laugh. “He was yelling, ‘You’re going to the Super Bowl! ... You’re going to the Super Bowl!’ But he was so loud I was like, ‘Dad, I can barely understand you.’ ”
Before the Giants left for Indianapolis, Ballard had his parents come to his townhouse in New Jersey — he lives with teammates Bear Pascoe and Jim Cordle — and took them out on the town.
“We took a limo into Manhattan for dinner at a great place — Del Frisco’s Grille — a couple of blocks off Times Square,” Ben said. “We had a good time, and when we finally drove back here to Springboro, we brought Jake’s dog along home with us.”
Ballard’s Golden Retriever is named Jager.
“As in Jagermeister?” he was asked.
He just grinned: “Ummm ... well, I did get him when I was in college, so ...”
Ballard said he was able to get 10 Super Bowl tickets at $900 each for family members. Several other people from Springboro, including some of the guys he played high school football with, planned just to come to Indianapolis and join the party even without tickets.
While Ballard thought he might get a chance to see some of those folks, he said the session would be brief. All his focus is on this game. He said he doesn’t want to get this close to a title and fall short, something he experienced in high school.
“I still remember being 12-0 and then losing to Dayton Carroll and not making it to the state finals,” he said.
It’s a memory like that that has kept him from celebrating the season he’s had so far. And so the four balls he caught for touchdowns this year — and then kept — simply sit in his room back in Jersey.
“After the season is over I’ll figure out how I’m going to display them,” he said. “I’ll probably put them in cases or something, but I’ll wait until this game is over and see what I have.”
He doesn’t say it, but you get the idea he’d like to add another touchdown ball or two to the collection.
In the process it would help him put a permanent frame on that perfect nickname:
“Patriot Killer.”
About the Author