Add an Ohio State assistant coach to the list of people who are mad about LaVar Ball.
Ball, the father of UCLA point guard and soon-to-be NBA lottery pick Lonzo Ball (and UCLA commits LaMelo and LiAngelo Ball), says and does a lot of ridiculous things. On Thursday, he and Lonzo unveiled their Big Baller Brand signature shoe, the ZO2. The shoe itself is fine, but it costs a whopping $495, so, naturally, people freaked out about it.
Ball very clearly gets a kick out of the outrage he seems to cause on a weekly basis (this tweet from Thursday cracked me up), but that’s beside the point. This is, after all, a college football blog.
Anyway … Zach Smith, Ohio State’s wide receivers coach, has called his group of receivers “Zone6” for the past few seasons (The team gets six points when you reach the end zone. Do you get it?). It became a thing pretty quickly and has a logo and everything. In fact, Smith — who is very, very active on Twitter — thinks the Balls ripped off his Zone6 logo for the Big Baller Brand ZO2 sneakers.
What if you can't afford a logo and marketing design team?? Are you THEN, not a BIG BALLER? ? https://t.co/kIlvDadWWM
— Zach Smith #Zone6 (@CoachZachSmith) May 5, 2017
S/O to whoever turned my logo into a sleek gold and white version!! #Robbery @Lavarbigballer pic.twitter.com/2LyAoVyr3v
— Zach Smith #Zone6 (@CoachZachSmith) May 5, 2017
Smith is so upset about it he changed his Twitter bio, complete with a (probably intentional) typo.
New Resume Title Added!!! ???? pic.twitter.com/EGIl7NymYv
— Zach Smith #Zone6 (@CoachZachSmith) May 5, 2017
He may have a point; the logos are pretty similar.
Who wore it better? Lonzo Ball or @CoachZachSmith? pic.twitter.com/CpZyZuXusN
— Brandon Castel (@BCastOhio) May 5, 2017
Why is #LonzoBallLogo ripping off @CoachZachSmith and #Zone6 ?? pic.twitter.com/1x2X20N6u3
— Chris Schaar (@Coach_Schaar) May 4, 2017
It’d be pretty surprising if the Ball family — or whoever designed the logo — was aware of Zone6. I mean, I’ve been glued to the college football world for the past three-plus years and I’ve only seen it on Twitter a few times.
Nonetheless, I’m sure we’re all anxiously awaiting LaVar Ball’s reply. (Sam Cooper is a writer for the Yahoo Sports blogs.)
