BALL CLUB

Bob and Betty Ball were an average couple, as nondescript as their names, and they settled with their young daughter in a serene Northern California suburb.

Bob was an engineer, Betty an elementary school teacher.

Life was simple. Life was grand.

Then on Jan. 4, 1981, their world became infinitely more complicated, a full-time juggling act in fact, when Betty gave birth to a pair of bouncing baby Balls.

First came Dave, a tad over 8 pounds. Next came Mat, 7 pounds 2 ounces.

Big to begin with, the identical twins never seemed to stop growing. Today they stand 6 feet 6 and 265 pounds, give or take a double cheeseburger, and are integral parts of UCLA’s punishing defense.

Dave is the right end on a line that ranks among the nation’s best. Mat began his career at end and now is a strongside linebacker who shares the position with Brandon Chillar.

Both Balls played significantly last season as redshirt freshmen and started together for the first time as bookend ends in the Sun Bowl. Their parents knew how Wisconsin must have felt tangling with the two of them.

“That was quite a sight,” Bob said. “On the field together, I think they liked that.”

Off the field, the Balls are personable and funny. One can take over a room. Two can be overwhelming.

They cringe when someone can’t tell them apart or breaks out the tired “double trouble” descriptions, but the fact remains they live together, have exactly the same class schedule and the same friends.

Said Mat: “Our relationship is brotherly, but it’s not like an elite group where we just do the Mat and Dave thing.”

Said Dave: “We aren’t the same person, you know. We don’t like being lumped together as twin monsters.”

Their quirky nature--as well as affinity for UCLA--was apparent in the eighth grade when they were assigned to write essays predicting their future.

Their vision was as identical as their sandy blond hair and freckled faces--to lead the Bruins to four national championships.

In basketball.

*

Bob and Betty recognize it in hindsight. Laughter got them through the duplicate dirty diapers, the broken furniture, the staggering grocery bills.

They passed on their humor to their sons. In the Balls’ semi-rural hometown of Dixon, a deep division exists between two factions. Mat and Dave joked their way into both groups.

“They learned in school to use humor and personality to weasel their way into hearts and out of trouble,” Bob said. “They were seen by a lot of people in the community as the concrete that held things together between the Hispanic crowd and the cowboy crowd.”

College isn’t much different. The Bruin roster is peppered with outgoing guys and racial tension is absent, but the Balls get everyone rolling.

“It’s like a dance, Mat then Dave, Dave then Mat,” said tight end Blane Kezirian, their roommate.

Teammates get phone calls in the middle of the night, with a high-pitched voice saying it’s Grandma. “Where are you? I just baked you some cookies,” the voice says before hanging up.

“They catch you off guard every time,” safety Jason Stephens said.

The Bruins should expect the unexpected by now. They got an earful in stereo when Mat and Dave spent an entire practice two years ago emitting primal screams.

Now that the Balls are in the lineup, their teammates get an eyeful. Dave does a bizarre sack dance that defensive line coach Don Johnson calls the “Egyptian Queen.” Mat showed his teammates a tape of a high school all-star game where he slapped the hand of an official signaling for a first down.

Coaches were oblivious one day when Mat and Dave switched jerseys and went to the other’s meetings.

Said Mat: “I like to make people bust up, just by being outlandish.”

Said Dave: “That’s a competitive thing between us, to make people laugh and enjoy being around us.”

*

Mat and Dave use each other for impetus, like two guys playing leapfrog at a picnic. As athletes they are roughly equal, and nobody competes harder than twins.

At age 6, Mat shoved Dave over a wheelbarrow and broke his arm. Dave struck back, knocking Mat into a pillar and cracking his tooth.

Said Mat: “He threw a truck at me.”

Said Dave: “A toy truck.”

Enmity gave way to empathy in the sixth grade. Mat made the school soccer team. Dave was cut. On game days, Dave stayed home, seething.

“That was one of the hardest times of our twin life,” Mat said. “I thought Dave was my equal in everything.”

Basketball was their favorite sport, mainly because they could play one-on-one in the driveway. They wrestled too, in the house against their parents’ wishes.

“My wife and I would come back from our evening walk and one or two things would be broken, the house was steamy and so were the boys,” Bob said. “We’d open the door and they would be sitting on the couch out of breath, pretending to watch TV.”

Dave found himself caught in the act a few weeks ago when his brutal late hit on Washington quarterback Taylor Barton was featured on televised highlights of the game.

He wrote Barton a letter of apology two days later and appeared genuinely contrite, sitting with reporters in the small media room near Spaulding Field as they wrote about the incident.

Of course, his brother accompanied him, needlessly becoming a sputtering spitting image.

Said Mat: “Dave doesn’t want to be the villain here.”

Said Dave: “I’ve got to face up to it. I regret that [hit] big time.”

*

Ask a question, Mat invariably answers first. Point it out and they shrug as if to say it beats having them both answer at the same time.

Said Mat: “Maybe it’s because I don’t want to have to wait for him to think of something. I just talk to keep things going.”

Said Dave: “He’s the test dummy. When I see what happens, I’ll do the exact same thing.”

It wasn’t always that way. In high school, Dave was the more vocal one. The relationship is the same in athletics. They are like two plastic racehorses in a carnival game, one taking the lead, the other catching and passing by a nose.

Mat was the basketball star at Dixon High, a center who averaged 19 points and 13 rebounds as a senior and was the league most valuable player. Dave was a starting forward, but a role player.

“Mat had the light shine on him in basketball,” Bob said. “So Dave went into football with a will to shine too.”

Dave set Dixon records with 31 sacks and 53 tackles for a loss in his career and was the league defensive player of the year as a senior. Mat was also a starting defensive end, but sat out six games his senior year because of injury.

Said Mat: “When I’d see Dave doing well, I feel the success because that’s my brother, but I also feel like I want some of the spotlight too.”

Said Dave: “I don’t want people to say, ‘Oh, the Ball brothers, Mat is the dominant one.’ I want to do all I can to succeed.”

At UCLA the Balls played end on opposite sides--coaches wisely made sure they didn’t compete for the same position--during their redshirt and freshmen seasons.

This year, Dave was the starting right end from the beginning of training camp while Mat began behind senior Kenyon Coleman on the left side. Mat moved to strongside linebacker less than two weeks before the opener against Alabama.

He started that game, but the mobile Chillar has started since, reducing Mat’s playing time mostly to running situations. Still, it beats playing behind Coleman.

“I moved hesitantly, but it’s worked out for the better,” Mat said.

As a linebacker, Mat often stands directly behind his brother, watching his back. But it’s Dave’s turn to be protective.

“I can tell this has been hard for him,” he said, “but he doesn’t complain.”

*

The study of twin dynamics has kept grants flowing for many a college professor. Kezirian could probably qualify for one himself. He marvels at how his dual roommates rarely duel.

“They never fight over anything,” he said. “It’s remarkable.”

Occasional tension is diffused with humor.

Said Mat: “My brother is stubborn, I’ll say that. Sometimes you need a break from Dave.”

Said Dave: “When Mat is not seeing my point of view, I have to bite my tongue or go at him with varying levels of aggression.”

No more pushing each other over wheelbarrows or wrestling in the living room, though. They are lifelong members of the same Ball team.

Said Mat: “We developed cleaner rules for contests later in life. We just get along well.”

Said Dave: “Mat looks out for me in certain situations and he knows I do the same for him. That’s what we’ll always do.”