National Football Foundation

Football has played an integral part in the life of Mark Ball, the president of the NFF Texas Tech Chapter. Ball, 58, has been involved with the game of football for 45 years as a player, coach or administrator.
 
Ball played quarterback and defensive back for Wichita Falls Rider High School (Texas), a team that spent 10 weeks ranked No. 1 in the state. Although football has been a large part of Ball’s life, he was actually a more talented baseball player. Ball went through four MLB drafts while attending junior college and Texas Wesleyan University, but was never signed by a team. His passion returned to the game of football after graduating from TWU, when Ball took a job as an assistant coach at L.D. Bell High School (Texas). He went on to spend 17 years as a head football coach in the state of Texas and another 10 as a fulltime athletics director. Ball currently serves as the executive director of athletics for the Lubbock (Texas) Independent School District.
 
Ball’s involvement with the NFF began in 1993 when he teamed up with John Mackovic to start the NFF Greater Austin (Texas) Chapter. He served as the president of the NFF Gridiron Club of Dallas Chapter from 2008-11, and he subsequently became the president of the Texas Tech Chapter after moving to Lubbock. At the time, the chapter only dispersed $1,000 in scholarships, but at their 2015 banquet, the chapter awarded $41,500 to the top high school scholar-athletes in West Texas.
 
“Knowing what part football played in the successes in scholar-athlete’s lives, not only in their profession, but with their families is incredible,” Ball said. “I think success in both football and life has a great correlation."
 
A big fan of golf, Ball and his wife of 34 years, Lori, have a daughter, Shelby, and two sons, Cody and Toby. Toby played three seasons at linebacker for the University of New Mexico.