In a small Indiana town, where State Road 38 and Highway 47 meet, the green grass of a ball field can be the gateway to the world. It was on those fields that Brad Maynard, former NFL player, found his dreams.
Brad found his future as a three-sport athlete in Sheridan, Indiana, a town home to only about 2,000 people in the early 1990s.
“For as long as I can remember, I would always be carrying a ball in my hands,” Brad says.
His dad had him carry a ball in both hands because he knew how important being ambidextrous was for sports.
Brad played football in the fall, baseball in the spring, and basketball year round. He says it was a great way to grow up.
“I have just had a love for sports since the day I was born,” Brad says.
As high school graduation neared for Brad, the multi-sport athlete started looking for places to continue playing. Ball State University wasn’t initially on his radar, but a coach who knew Brad mentioned the player to then-offensive coordinator Bill Lynch.
Bill aggressively pursued the punter, and soon enough, Brad was suiting up for the Cardinals. His career with Ball State included a trip to the Southwest for the 1996 Las Vegas Bowl, where the Cardinals squared off against the Nevada Wolf Pack.
It also included being named the 1996 Mid-American Conference Kicker of the Year. He was the first punter in the history of college football to be named the NCAA Division I’s most valuable player.
“The MAC Hall of Fame is awesome, just being recognized by writers, coaches as hall of fame material,” Brad says. “The guys that are in there, especially the NFL Hall of Fame, they change the game.”
In the spring of 1997, Brad got invited to the NFL Scouting Combine held in Indianapolis, where two teams in particular that showed interest in him— the New York Giants and the St. Louis Rams. With the 95th pick in the third round of the 1997 draft, the New York Giants selected Brad.
He stayed with them through the 2001 Super Bowl when the Giants faced the Baltimore Ravens.
Though the Giants lost, Brad recorded the most punts by any punter in Super Bowl history — 11 — and that record still stands to this day.
After playing his first four seasons with the Giants, he decided to leave the team.
“I missed the Midwest … so when the time came four years later and I was a free agent, I left and went to Chicago,” he says.
His time with the Bears brought him to another Super Bowl, when Chicago faced Indianapolis.
Brad played for two more teams, the Houston Texans and Cleveland Browns, and by the end of his professional career, he’d logged 15 years in the NFL.
Like Brad, Evan Triggs started his football journey at a young age, when a family friend and a coach introduced him to the game.
Evan, a 2001 Ball State alumni, said once he stepped foot on a football field, he never looked back, following the yard lines from youth league ball to Cathedral High School in Indianapolis and a state title win in 1996.
Though he considered other schools, the defensive lineman ended up 60 miles from his hometown as a Ball State Cardinal.
One of his defining moments as a Cardinal, he said, came during a game against Eastern Michigan University. The Cardinals were on track to win the conference that year, and Evan came off the bench on a play action fake, hitting the quarterback “clean in the chest.”
The quarterback fumbled the ball, and one of Evan’s teammates picked it up, going 65 yards for a touchdown. That score invigorated the team, and they ended up winning by 10 points that day.
“That was a game winning play for me,” he says.
For Evan, the memories on the field rival those off.
He says one of the beautiful things about football is getting to travel the country with teammates, forgetting about academics for a while, and just focusing on having fun with a team and playing football.
He pursued the NFL for his first few years after college, but when he realized it wasn’t for him, he spent the next six years playing recreational football — both indoor and outdoor. Now, he’s the vice president of Earthwave Technologies, and he coaches at his high school alma mater, Cathedral High School.
Both Evan and Brad were influenced by their Ball State coaches to make the most in every game. For Brad, that coach was Bill Reynolds. Although he was a retired volunteer coach, he knew kicking and punting well and had a way of making Brad feel confident and relaxed on the field. Brad says he owes his Ball State coaches everything for getting him to the NFL.
“Looking back at Ball State, I am grateful for the time I spent there,” Evan says. “I am grateful that the coaches trusted in me and took me in — I am grateful to have been a Cardinal.”
Sources: ESPN, StatsIndiana
