HOFFMAN ESTATES, Ill. – Most athletes would sacrifice almost anything to play in one Olympics, but Lloy Ball is one of the few in the history of this country who can even dream of playing in four. This August, Ball will become the first American male to participate in four Olympics in one of the major team sports.

He’s spending this summer getting ready for the last chance he never thought he’d have.

The Woodburn native and IPFW product led the United States men’s volleyball team to a 25-23, 25-16, 25-16 defeat of Bulgaria on Friday night in World League volleyball at the Sears Centre west of Chicago. The Americans are ranked No. 3 in the world and are getting better as evidenced by the way they easily handled the No. 4 Bulgarians. There are nine matches left before the Olympics.

No other Fort Wayne athlete has ever played in more than one Olympics. At 36, Ball will obviously be the oldest player on his team and one of the oldest athletes in Beijing.

“There are some days where it all hurts a lot, but when the whistle blows I’m still the competitive guy I’ve always been,” Ball said. “If my father handed anything down to me, he handed me that. I’m going to lead the team and be fired up and for an hour and a half or two hours, I’m going to have all energy in the world.”

He’ll also have all the experience in the world. Though he’s not now, Ball was the team’s captain for 10 years and has played more than 400 international matches, both U.S. standards. As he’s gotten older, Ball also has won the world’s most prestigious professional club championships in Greece, Italy and Russia, and this winter led his Russian team to the European Champions League title, a tournament for the world’s best pro teams.

Though Ball had announced his retirement from the U.S. team after the Athens games in 2004, coach Hugh McCutcheon called last fall to see if Ball still had any interest. After the U.S. team faltered at last year’s World Championships and seeing Ball’s success in Europe, McCutcheon needed a steady hand on the court.

“When you are coaching the USA National Team, part of our charter is to get the best players you can to represent our country,” McCutcheon said. “It was clear that Lloy was still playing volleyball at a very high level and having success, so I thought it was incumbent upon me to make that phone call.”

McCutcheon believes Ball is a better all-around player and a better setter now than he has ever been, partly because he is so experienced. Ball has seen and tried anything that can be accomplished on a volleyball court. He has no fear of failure so he’s not intimidated by a big moment.

“His ability to contribute in the critical moments of matches has been really a nice addition,” McCutcheon said. “For us it’s wonderful to have a guy who is going to be a four-time Olympian to be part of our group so we can draw on those experiences. There was some good, but mainly some disappointments there that we can say, what can we learn from those previous negatives so that we can make sure we don’t repeat those this time?”

It also helps that this is probably the best U.S. team Ball has played on. The Americans are experienced, big and very quick defensively. He’s been setting such players as Ryan Millar, Tom Hoff and Clay Stanley for almost 10 years, meaning there’s no transition time to his return to the lineup. The Americans are a remarkable 20-3 since he returned to the roster.

“I think we’re a lot more versatile and we have a lot more options,” Ball said. “We have two different kinds of opposites, two different kinds of outsides, three different kinds of middles, two different kinds of setters. If one look doesn’t work one night, we have a Plan B where before we had a Plan A and if that didn’t go well, we were probably going to be in trouble.”

Ball also has the knack of making everyone else better and keeping everyone involved. Opposite Clay Stanley has been struggling to find consistency offensively, but he hit 17 kills Friday night in 22 swings with his buddy setting him up. “He make’s it easy because he knows me,” Stanley said. “I like playing with the old man.”