PLAYING FOR ‘WEEZY’ Raiders’ newest offensive lineman joins his stricken best friend’s former team
ALAMEDA » Trent Brown stood in the middle of a Super Bowl celebration last month in a state of euphoria and sadness. As confetti fell inside Atlanta’s Mercedes-Benz Stadium, the New England Patriots’ tackle kissed the Lombardi Trophy and said, “Weezy, that was for you.”
Neiron Ball, aka “Weezy,” was unaware of his best friend’s tribute after the Patriots defeated the Los Angeles Rams 13-3. Ball, a former Raiders linebacker, is in a coma at a long-term care facility in Georgia after an aneurysm burst in his brain Sept. 16.
It has been an emotional six months for Brown, who last week signed with the Raiders for the richest contract ever for an offensive lineman.
Moments after meeting local reporters to discuss the signing of a four-year deal with a guarantee of more than $36 million, Brown spoke about his friendship with Ball.
“I call him a walking angel, a true soldier who will never give in,” Brown said.
Ball, 26, was diagnosed eight years ago while playing at the University of Florida with a rare, congenital condition called arteriovenous malformation (AVM), in which the brain’s blood vessels get tangled and rupture.
Physicians thought the condition had been corrected after a radiation treatment, but Ball suffered an episode last fall that left him in a medically induced coma.
Brown, starting his second game as the Patriots’ left tackle that September day, expected to see his friend afterward in Jacksonville, Florida. The Florida teammates had made plans the day before the game.
Exhausted after a 31-20 defeat in 97-degree heat, Brown was sitting on a table getting rehydrated with intravenous fluids when his cell phone rang. It was Ball’s brother.
“I’ll never forget it as long as I live,” said Brown, who was traded last year by the 49ers. “He told me Neiron was throwing up and then unresponsive. I was like, `I know Neiron. He’s going to shake this.’ I just knew he would be out of that state by now, but here we are.”
NiQuae White, 16 years older than Neiron, said her brother is out of intensive care, “progressing,” and the family hopes he will eventually move to a rehabilitation facility. Family members are not providing many of the medical details to protect Ball’s privacy.
Neiron’s life was in doubt from the start. NiQuae, whose mother Johanna White was undergoing treatment for the auto-
immune disease lupus, described her brother’s life as a miracle.
“My mother was having chemotherapy when she found out she was pregnant and doctors advised her to terminate the pregnancy,” NiQuae said. “She said, `I’m done taking the chemo. I’m going to have this baby and the baby is going to be healthy.’”
Neiron Ball arrived on Aug. 20, 1992. Although six weeks premature, he weighed 9 pounds. For 12 days, Ball remained in the hospital with a heart murmur.
Life didn’t get any easier for the child. When Ball was 6, Johanna White had a fatal heart attack on Mother’s Day. Within two years, Neiron’s father Ronnie Ball was diagnosed with lung cancer and died after a seizure, an episode the son witnessed.
Raised by his grandmother and other relatives in Jackson, Georgia, Ball developed into a top-flight football player. In 2010, he earned a scholarship at Florida and played in 13 games as a freshman.
After the season Ball, then 18, saw physicians when he felt pain in his neck and head. They identified the condition as an AVM, which can leave victims paralyzed and is sometimes fatal. But Ball recovered and was cleared to play in 2012.
“I went from a very serious brain injury to being able to play in a year,” Ball told this news organization in 2015. “After it happened, I wasn’t even thinking about playing. But I just kept getting better. I felt blessed.”
His trials were not over. Ball had a potentially career-ending knee injury as a college senior that needed microfracture surgery. Ball said that after conquering the AVM, knee surgery didn’t seem like much of an obstacle.
“If you know his full life story, everything he’s been through during his time on earth, that’s why to me he’s a walking angel,” Brown said. “He’s not done and I will do my best to finish whatever I can for him.”
As the story goes, the college roommates were engaged in some good-natured banter when Brown said his buddy called him “Beezy.” The big lineman countered with “Weezy,” and the monikers stuck. So did the friendship.
White, the oldest of five siblings, considers Brown, 25, her adopted brother.
“I can honestly say they’re closer to one another than their own siblings,” she said of Ball and Brown. “And they love their siblings. It was like a puzzle piece that fit perfectly.”
Fate brought Brown and Ball even closer during the third day of the 2015 NFL draft.
The Raiders took Ball in the fifth round with the 161st pick after the linebacker had an excellent Pro Day to show scouts he’d recovered from knee surgery. Two rounds later, the 49ers drafted Brown at No. 244.
Ball was elated, while Brown was disappointed he didn’t go higher but eager for his NFL opportunity.
Best of all, Weezy and Beezy, neither of whom had been to California, were headed to the Bay Area.
“We were right across the bay so we probably saw each other once a week,” Brown said. “He’d be sleeping at my house or I’d be sleeping at his. We talked just about every day.”
As a rookie, Ball impressed Jack Del Rio’s staff with his special teams play. His athleticism was so apparent he became the starting weakside linebacker in the season’s fifth week, logging 36 snaps. But in his second start, Ball had a non-contact knee injury after 18 snaps that ended his season — and career. He struggled through the 2016 preseason, but was placed on injured reserve and did not return.
Brown, meanwhile, played sparingly for the 49ers. The largest player in the NFL at 6-foot-8, 380 pounds, Brown made five appearances with two starts.
“They were basically out there by themselves,” said White, the sister. “They made it their business to see one another when they weren’t training, and to pick up the phone to vent, share secrets and advise each other. I think they know more about each other than anyone else could possibly know.”
Through it all, Ball’s disposition remained relentlessly positive, a smile rarely leaving his face. Ball befriended the family of a 10-year-old boy who had suffered paralysis as a result of an AVM and attended an awareness fund-raising walk organized by the Aneurysm and AVM Foundation. He was an inspiration to those whose conditions up to that point had a far more serious outcome.
All of which makes the current situation more painful. The family has said only in a statement in September: “We believed Neiron’s AVM was obliterated, that doesn’t seem to be the case as he developed an aneurysm that burst. His family asks for continued prayers.”
Beezy, meanwhile, carries on. He made trips from Boston to Georgia to see his best friend during the season, and shed some tears in solitude as the reality sunk in about joining Ball’s Raiders.
To NiQuae White, Brown’s landing spot in free agency made perfect sense.
“Wow, look at this — God is sending you to finish what our baby brother started,” White said. “You’re doing what Neiron wanted.
“Trying to help the Raiders be great.”