Sunday Interview with Debbie Ball: ‘I always felt like I was sort of a door opener’

In more than 40 years as a coach, Debbie Ball has been a part of more than 1,000 wins and will be inducted into the Georgia Coaches Hall of Fame on June 4. But she considers herself first a teacher. Recently, she sat down with Ledger-Enquirer sports editor Kevin Price and photographer Robin Trimarchi to talk about her life and career. Here are excerpts of that interview, edited for length and clarity.

Q: Tell me a little bit about your background.

A: I was born in Gainesville, Ga., but I grew up in a little town outside of Gainesville called Gillsville. I grew up on a farm. My daddy was a truck driver and a farmer and my mother worked in a mill.

Q: Just a general farm or was there one particular thing?

A: He raised cattle.

Q: Did you work on the farm?

A: Oh yes, I definitely worked on the farm. I can remember he plowed and raised all kinds of vegetables. He took care of land for his trucking employer and so they had a lot of cattle. I can remember many mornings we milked a cow for our milk and we raised our hogs and cows for our meat. ...

Q: Did you have a large family?

A: I had five brothers, two sisters. We had a large family. I can remember my daddy thinking we needed to be doing something all the time. When we would get home from school, he would send us over in the pasture to pull a weed called bitter weed. It made the milk taste funny when cows ate it if you milked them. He would send us over there to pull the bitter weed knowing it was going to grow right back and he had a bush hog — I didn’t realize that till I got grown. He just wanted us to do something. ...

Q: I was going to ask you how that shaped your life.

A: My mom and dad believed in hard work and they worked hard all their lives. Just growing up on that farm — I had no idea then — I wanted off that farm by the time I was in high school. Now, looking back, it really taught me so many valuable lessons that I try to instill in the kids I work with.

Q: Tell me about your mom.

A: Mom was a little bitty woman. She was about 5-foot-1 and carried a big stick. When you have eight kids, she was around the house until I was in about the third or fourth grade then she went to work. I became the boss around the house. I had an older brother, one year older than I was. I was expected to clean the house and help cook and all that.

Q: Where did she go to work?

A: She worked in a mill and she worked in an egg processing plant. She died of cancer in 2000; she had been working in a silk mill in Commerce, Ga. They loved her, because she was that generation that came to work and did what they were supposed to do. She was a sweet woman. Everybody loved her. She had a handle on all of her kids.

Q: How was being the second and the oldest female, how did that affect you?

A: I was the boss. I sort of played with the boys, grew up with the boys, and anytime they needed somebody to play with them I was the one that was chosen to play. It affected me in that by the time I was 12 years old I was cooking meals for the whole family... and I was expected to keep a house clean.

Today, I can remember my kids growing up, I helped them all along the way in school. I guess my daddy went to about the 10th or 11th grade; my mother had an eighth grade education. I rarely remember them helping me with any kind of schoolwork, other than just reading at the beginning. Once I got to high school, I was on my own.

Q: Was sports part of the family?

A: My daddy was on a state championship basketball team from Braselton, Ga. He told us the story of when they won the state championship Mr. Braselton owned a general store and he took them in the general store and let them pick out anything they wanted. Yes, we had a basketball goal out in the pasture. He would get out there and shoot with us every once in a while. My daddy was working all the time, so on Sundays my family and my cousins and my aunts and uncles would go to the Gillsville Elementary ballfield and we would play softball on Sunday afternoons.

Q: Did you play sports in high school? Were they available to you?

A: I started playing softball when I was in fifth grade in Gillsville Elementary. When I was in high school... my ninth grade year, I played basketball. There wasn’t softball in schools at that time, but I played basketball. I was a pretty good basketball player, but I lived 30 minutes from the high school. I didn’t have a way back and forth, so after ninth grade I didn’t play anymore.

Q: When you left high school, where did you go?

A: When I left high school, I went to Gainesville College.

Q: For 2 years, then you went to Georgia?

A: Really for a year and a half, then I transferred to the University of Georgia.

Q: Were you the first to go from your family or did your older brother go?

A: I am the only person in my family to have a college education.

Q: What does that mean to you?

A: Well, when I got my doctorate degree from Auburn, my mother and daddy came. On my way home I thought they don’t really have any idea what has gone into me getting this degree, but they were very proud of that. ... My mother and daddy just expected me to do good. They just expected me to excel. ... I always wanted to please my mother, but I think I wanted to please my daddy more than anything .

Q: When did you know you wanted to be a teacher?

A: I knew when I was in the third grade — I had a wonderful third grade teacher. I knew I was going to be a teacher or a missionary, one of the two. Of course, I’ve been in the mission field teaching all these years.

Q: Who was your third grade teacher?

A: Her name was Crete Hooper. She owned a farm. She had no children and she gave me my first spanking in school. She was just inspirational. She knew I came from a large family. I think she sort of looked out after me. She just told me that I could be whoever I wanted to be. ... We had this little poem that I shared with my different athletes over the years. It was entitled “Be the Best of Whatever You Are.” I remember her reading that to us almost weekly.

Q: What did you get your degree in at Georgia?

A: Physical Education.

Q: When did coaching come into the picture?

A: Coaching came into the picture on my first job. When you major in physical education, you are expected to coach. My first job was at South Hall Junior High. . There were six PE teachers at a junior high — three males, three female. I was the youngest, I came in last and we were all probably in our 20s. We taught, we did not roll the ball around. We taught everything from badminton to bait casting to gun safety. I think if you’re a good coach, you’re a good teacher. It was just a great situation to start out. Leland Ditchman was my principal, and he moved to the high school the next year. I was honored that he asked me to go with him to the high school. When I went to Johnson High School, I started coaching tennis. I was a tennis player.

Q: You left Johnson and came to Shaw. What brought you to Columbus and Shaw High School?

A: I married Bubba Ball. We got married in the summer of 1978, when Shaw was opening. He knew he was going to Shaw and it was really funny because I had come down like two years before and interviewed with Jim Buntin at Columbus High School. He offered me the job, but he wanted me to coach cheerleading. I said, “I don’t know anything about cheerleading. I don’t think I want to get into that.” I didn’t take the job and in 1978 when Bubba was going to Shaw, I came down and interviewed with John Tucker. They offered me a job. We weren’t married at that time. I don’t know if they would have hired me at Shaw if we’d been married. I don’t know what the rules were at that time. We got married that summer and if you look back in the history of Shaw on the program dedicating the school, my name is Debbie Perdue. It’s not Debbie Ball. That’s what brought me to Columbus.

Q: You coached a lot of sports at Shaw. Which ones?

A: I started off coaching just basketball. I only coached basketball because Bubba said he would help me. I’d never coached basketball, I’d never coached softball. I knew a lot about softball but not coaching, but knew the game because I had played all my life and I played on a women’s travel team up until I moved to Columbus.

Q: It was slowpitch softball back then. When was the transition from slowpitch to fastpitch?

A: When the Olympics were coming to town. I had just finished my doctorate. I’d had those two boys while I was working on that doctorate. When they changed, I thought, “Oh gosh, I know nothing about fastpitch softball.” But I did get fastpitch players from the Northern Little League and all that, that came to me when we were playing slowpitch. They played fastpitch in the league and came to me and played slowpitch. I got a few kids from Pioneer, but most of them were from Northern. They knew fastpitch and so when I had to change I thought, ‘Well, I guess I’m going to have to go to school again.’ … The thing that challenged me was the comment was made by the local fastpitch softball coaches: “Well, Debbie Ball has done real well in slowpitch, but now we’re going to see what kind of coach she really is.” That was just a challenge. Plus, I had Bubba. Bubba played fastpitch softball.

Q: In addition to basketball and softball, what else did you coach at Shaw?

A: I coached cheerleading for 13 years. I never wanted to be a cheerleading coach. But Rhonda (Prather) was cheerleading coach and they were in the red I think and Bubba was pitching a fit. I said why don’t I handle the money for them. ... We got them in the black. The more I was around them, she says, “Why don’t you just help me?” I started helping her and the next thing I know I’m an assistant coach, coaching basketball and softball and cheerleading, and then she starts having children and she comes to him and says, “Well, I’ve got two babies now, so I really can’t do this.” I was left holding the bag. Then I learned to love it. Some of my most precious athletes, because I treated cheerleading just like I did a sport. It wasn’t a sport at that time. I learned that it is a sport.

Q: Who was the best softball player you’ve ever coached?

A: I hate to tell you the best, because there are all different kinds of players. I can give you some names of the best: Kim Thomas and Natalie Hartford, Diedra Johnson, they were early on. Phyllis Locklear. Then I would have to say Kristin Arnold, who was my first fastpitch college player. Of course, Ashley Godfrey, Brittany Day, at Brookstone, Isabelle McCluskey. I’ve had some great softball players.

Q: Do players come back to see you all the time?

A: Yes. As a matter of fact, I got a text yesterday from Isabelle McCluskey saying, “I’m back at home. We need to get together.” I get to go to weddings. I hear all about their babies. My boys have always been amazed at Christmas at all the Christmas cards I get, showing me their children and all that. Ashley Godfrey was here a few weeks ago on business. Kristin Arnold is a teacher at Americus High School. Diedra Johnson, she is a college coach in Division 3. She won a soccer National Championship in Virginia. Kim Thomas helped me coach at Brookstone. Natalie Hartford is tennis coach at Hardaway.

Q: Did you have anybody during your career that you just felt like you didn’t reach them when they were in high school, but then later on they came back and they told you ...

A: Oh yeah. You have a lot of those kids that they graduate sometimes and you think, “Well, I don’t know if they got it or not.” On Facebook, some little something will pop up and they will tell you how much you meant to them and that you didn’t see it then, but they do now.

Q: You grew up coaching in the Title IX era. What did Title IX mean to female athletes?

A: You’ve always felt like the male sports got more money, got more attention, and so I think Title IX opened up a lot of opportunities for girls that I didn’t have when I was growing up. Even when I first started coaching at Shaw, Title IX had just started a little bit.. Today I feel like girls don’t recognize the opportunities they have a lot of time. It’s just a given. When I came here girls wanted to play. Today a lot of times kids are just wanting to participate, not really wanting to work hard to play.

Q: When Coach (Charles) Flowers left Shaw and you became the first female athletic director in the school district, what did that mean to you?

A: It was a job that I’d wanted before and I felt like I was ready to handle that job when Bubba left, but the administration at that time didn’t feel like I was. Dr. Arnold, Jim Arnold, the principal, felt like I was ready, I think. It opened the door for other females. I always felt like I was sort of a door opener. It’s sort of like when I was the cheerleading coach, I couldn’t understand as much time as I was putting into cheerleading why cheerleading coaches were not being paid like I was as a softball coach or as a basketball coach, because I was actually putting in more time with cheerleading than I was with the others. I went down and saw the superintendent at that time. I don’t remember who it was. I wrote a letter or something. I felt like I opened the door for the cheerleading coaches to be on equal footing with everybody else, because when they did the budget for the head coaches, they started paying them like they did the other people. Title IX, athletic director, all of that, it was just a process. It was just a matter of time and I happened to be the person at the time. I was pretty outspoken and I happened to be the one. I think when I became athletic director I wanted to be fair to every sport, but I knew the importance of football and the revenue to school.

Q: In a week, you go into the Georgia Coaches Hall of Fame. What does that mean to you?

A: It’s humbling. I was the second (female) president of the Georgia Athletic Coaches Association. When Ray Broadway asked me to do that, I thought, “I don’t know if I can do that or not. It’s all male.” I’ve been a member of GACA since I started coaching, because I realized the importance of networking, going to clinics, going to conferences, and being a part of an organization.When I was the president is when they started the hall of fame. I was on that first committee with the hall of fame. I got to pick out the rings and we designed what they put on the walls. Never ever did I ever think I would be able to be one of those people on the walls up there. I have had the opportunity to present the award to many coaches over the years. When they called me, I said, “You’ve got to be kidding.” I was really in shock if you want to know the truth. I am so honored and humbled.

Q: How is retirement?

A: Retirement is good, except from January to May, I’m helping Dusty.

Q: You’ve done that for three years in a row?

A: Yes, for three years. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it, because it gives me time with him that I hadn’t had in a long time. I work in my yard and watch TV and go out to lunch with my friends. When you’re a teacher and coach, you’re working from 7 til midnight, you don’t get to do those things. I’m getting to do those things now that I didn’t get to do for 40 years.

This story was originally published May 28, 2016 at 8:44 PM with the headline "Sunday Interview with Debbie Ball: ‘I always felt like I was sort of a door opener’."