For BYU tennis player David Ball, Friday, March 13, 2020, will be a day he’s not going to forget anytime soon.
The 5-foot-11 senior from Palo Alto, California, was practicing with his teammates when they got word that the NCAA and BYU had made the decision to cancel the rest of the 2020 season due to concerns over the coronavirus. That news came one day after hearing that their road match at Cal Poly had been canceled for the same reason.
He stayed on the courts for a couple of hours to let the news sink in. “I got a weird feeling like, is this it? I’ve been playing tennis for the last 20 years and this is how it’s going to end,” said Ball. “I also realized that our 4-0 sweep at Utah (March 7) was likely the last time I’d wear a BYU uniform. My heart ached for the rest of my teammates especially the seniors.
“Then I also thought of my good friend Colten Yardley, who was in Albuquerque, New Mexico, getting ready to compete in the NCAA Indoor National Championships that weekend. I also felt sad for my friend Jake Toolson who I’d known since our freshman season. I was looking forward to watching him and his teammates make a run in the NCAA Men’s Basketball Championships. So many of these athletes have amazing stories that now were never going to be told.”
And that’s how Untold Athletes came to be.
Ball contacted other BYU student-athletes to see if they’d like to share their experience on how they were handling and managing the cancellation of their season. He wondered if something like that would be helpful. Ball received positive feedback from several BYU student-athletes, so he decided to reach out to other athletes across the country. Many felt that a platform for sharing their stories would be much appreciated and helpful in these emotional times of their lives.
Since launching the project in mid-March, numerous athletes around the country have shared their own stories, while others have nominated teammates who have unique, inspirational stories that deserve to be told through Instagram and Twitter.
Despite these times of quarantine and social distancing, Ball, his girlfriend Natalie Clark (a member of BYU’s women’s soccer team) and his friend Ethan Finlinson are finding ways to get the stories out. Ball is in California, Clark is currently in Mesa, Arizona, with her family and Finlinson is working on the project from Provo, Utah.
In less than two weeks, the Untold Athletes Instagram account has more than 1,270 followers and the Twitter account is starting to grow.
Ball, who is a three-time ITA All-Academic Scholar-Athlete, a two-time ITA All-Academic honoree and a three-time co-captain has not yet decided if he’ll come back for another senior season but says that working on the Untold Athletes project and reading these powerful stories has helped him immensely through these challenging and emotional times.