It’s a story of perseverance that led Napa’s Joe Beland to the part-time job of a lifetime: hand-painting game-used footballs for some of the gridiron’s biggest stars.
But long before he was watching the NFL playoffs with John Madden and bumping elbows with Archie Manning, Beland was just a regular guy working at Home Depot and trying to find his purpose.
He grew up in Napa, then moved to Texas and dabbled in professional soccer, playing for the Dallas Sidekicks of the Major Arena Soccer League, before eventually deciding to move back home and work full-time at the Home Depot.
A people person, Joe loved interacting with customers and colleagues, and soon found a job in human resources. He liked his job, but still felt a bit lost – and he had forgotten about his childhood talent: art.
That was right about the time he met Monica – they’ve been married for 20 years now. “I pushed him and I pushed him,” she said. “I was critical.”
Monica was starting her own company, Seasons of Skin Day Spa in Santa Rosa, and knew that starting a business required determination to push through failure.
She knew Joe had drawing talent. It ran in the family; his brother, Tom Beland, draws comics for Marvel. Joe preferred drawing sports logos. His ability to craft them by hand had caught the attention of friends in high school.
Years later, he was watching Emmitt Smith give a television interview in which he told memorabilia collectors not to trust the game-used footballs for sale on eBay; the Hall of Fame running back had kept all of his game-used footballs and said the ones on eBay were fakes.
That gave Beland an idea: What if he convinced players to send him their game-used balls? He could draw logos, paint them with marvelous detail and send them back to the players to forever commemorate their favorite moments.
“A lot of players score their first NFL touchdown and keep the ball,” Beland said. “The equipment manager marks it – they put a piece of tape on it. But if that tape falls off, it’s just a football. Nobody knows anything about it. A football is just a football until you tell a story on it.”
But how would he get NFL players to send a random guy in Napa their most prized possessions?
Beland figured he’d better show them a free sample.
In 2005, when the Raiders were still doing training camp in Northern California, Beland hand-painted a football for one of the reserve players and went to camp to give it to him. The security guards wouldn’t let him in, so he wrapped up the ball, put his name and phone number on the wrapper and threw it over the fence.
Three hours later, the player called and said he wanted to order some footballs from him.
Sports broadcaster Vern Glenn, formerly of KRON 4, ran a story on Beland. Suddenly, he started to gain some traction. But he was discouraged with how slowly his business was picking up. He tried going to Pee Wee football games to display his artwork, thinking families might commission painted game balls for their sons. Nobody was interested.
“It was embarrassing,” he said. “Just sitting out there in 100-degree heat by myself. But Monica kept pushing me.”
“He wasn’t getting anything in the beginning,” she said. “I told him, ‘Give it time.’”
Beland got his big break when Highland Park High School in Dallas called him up and requested 87 personalized footballs, one for each kid in the program. They needed them in two weeks.
He took a week off work and started painting footballs 14 hours a day. With help from his wife and kids, Beland got the footballs out just before his deadline.
At almost $200 a ball, it was his first big payday and a sign that his artwork was valuable.
“He’s so talented,” Monica said. “He has hands like a surgeon. And he’s so passionate about it. He really believes in what he does.”
More high schools started calling. College players, too. Soon, coaches and referees were ringing him up with requests.
His big break, though, happened by accident during a trip to New Orleans when he ate some bad food while on a tour. When Beland told the bus driver he was about to get sick, the driver kicked him off, and Beland ran to the nearest establishment, a sports bar across the street.
He had stumbled into Manning’s Sports Bar and Grill – owned by Archie Manning, a 14-year NFL quarterback and the father of Peyton Manning, one of the greatest quarterbacks of all time, and Eli Manning, another star quarterback who will be eligible to join his brother in the Hall of Fame next year.
“I talked to the bartender, told him what I did, he contacted Archie and he called me the next day,” Beland said. “He said, ‘I’d like to get some footballs done. I don’t have anyone doing this.’
“So I did it for Archie, then Peyton’s kids, then Eli. A lot for the grandchildren. The one getting out of college right now, Arch. It’s weird how it all progressed from there. I got sick on a bus, walked off and boom, there I was.”
“Boom” is also John Madden’s catch phrase, which is no coincidence. Madden, one of the greatest NFL coaches and broadcasters the game has ever seen, became one of Beland’s most famous clients.
When Beland painted a career ball for him, the former Raiders’ coach liked the ball so much, he invited Beland’s entire family over to his house to watch the NFL playoffs.
“Here’s John Madden, talking to me about the game and showing me his Emmy Awards,” Beland said. “It was bizarre.”
Beland’s painting process has been honed over the last 20 years. Now it takes him about 45 minutes to complete a ball, with the labor spread out over a week. He washes the ball then sands it down to expose the leather, so the first coat of primer will adhere. He uses two coats of a special latex paint. Oil-based paint can make the ball crack and chip; latex allows flexibility for the ball to survive in various temperatures.
Once the paint cures, Beland is ready to draw. Doing it all by hand, he crafts the logos of the teams who used the football during an NFL game. He paints a few sentences to capture the moment and its owner. Then he adds borders and trims and covers the work in a protective UV coating so it can survive for decades.
“I have a case with the balls in them, and they’re still in great shape,” said former NFL defensive back Honor Jackson, who commissioned two footballs from Beland about 10 years ago. “They’re really nice. It’s just a memory you can hold and keep. It’s not like making the play, but something that can remind me of it. My grandkids see them and they’re like, ‘Oh Grandad, you played?’”
Beland estimates he’s done between 3,000 and 4,000 footballs over the last 20 years. At about $200 a ball, that’s $600,000 to $800,000 of additional income.
“It’s really helped our family,” Monica said.
Beland has been at Home Depot for 38 years. Right now, he paints on nights and weekends, and every now and then, he’ll paint something for Monica. She’ll gush and wonder why he isn’t painting full-time.
“We’ll go to art shows and I’ll say, ‘You could paint that,’ and he’ll say, ‘Yeah, I can paint that,’” she said.
Meanwhile, he’s eyeing retirement, hoping to free up more time for his art
“It’s a hobby that’s become something he loves,” Monica says. “It’s so emotional to the players. They’ll send him videos of seeing the ball for the first time and they’re crying. And Joe is a sensitive guy, so he likes to see that. It makes him feel good.”
It’s given him purpose, too.
“He loves making people happy,” she said.
