The globe-trotting basketball

By Rob Miech

Wednesday, May 14, 2008 | 2 a.m.

Noel and Angelina Andreoni posed a question to the kids who had gathered one day last week at a Boys and Girls Club in Syracuse, N.Y.

Who had touched the ball?

Scores of hands shot into the air.

Angelina told them that because they had touched the worn Spalding basketball, they now had on their hands dirt from the Great Wall of China, sweat from an NBA player and snot from an elephant.

The kids stared at their palms.

They went berserk when told that hip-hop artist Ludacris had touched the ball during the NBA All-Star Game festivities in New Orleans.

“Loony,” Noel said, laughing, during a phone interview. “It took 15 minutes to calm them down.”

Noel first made a basket with that ball at Desert Breeze Park in Las Vegas in May 2001. The couple had quit their jobs and wanted to travel the world. He intended to take the new ball along, but only after putting it through the hoop.

From that small idea, a minor movement was born. The couple shared the ball as they traveled to 28 countries. It has been touched by more than 5,000 people.

In Thailand, that aforementioned elephant dunked the ball. It’s been shot in the shadow of Mount Fuji in Japan, Easter Island, Stonehenge, the Forbidden City in China and the Golden Gate Bridge.

At Grand Canyon West, a woman from one of the oldest Hualapai families shot the ball at a hoop on the lip of the canyon. Five people, trying to hide out of a camera’s view, crouched to catch the ball if it took a bad bounce. It didn’t.

A tyke in New Hampshire launched the synthetic leather basketball 20 feet over a backboard and into a forest, where it picked up a small gash. In January, the ball was shot at the Thomas & Mack Center. It’s been on the anchors’ desk during a SportsCenter broadcast.

“We don’t have a general plan or a great marketing scheme,” Noel said. “It’s simple, to remind kids that every little thing they do has an impact. Do things that have a good impact.”

The couple were married in Las Vegas in 1995, during the more than 10 years they spent here. Angelina served cocktails at the Las Vegas Hilton. Noel’s various jobs included parking cars at the Forum Shops at Caesars.

He parked Andre Agassi’s vehicle several times, marveling at how the tennis star and Las Vegas native accommodated his fans. Agassi’s extensive charitable endeavors sparked the Andreonis, but Agassi’s agents have declined three offers to have him shoot the ball.

Combining basketball, photography and travel, the Andreonis have become global roundball ambassadors. Their journey can be followed at their Web site, shoottheball.net.

“We represent ourselves, the West and America,” Noel, 39, said. “It’s a way to connect with people.”

He’s from Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, where they bought a home in 2006. She’s from Calgary, where they met. They also tell people they’re from Las Vegas.

“When they hear you’ve lived in Las Vegas, people all over the world want to know what that’s like,” Angelina, 37, said. “It’s difficult. How do you tell people what it’s like? But it’s a way to connect.”

A book deal might be in the works, and they’ve attracted Spalding as a sponsor. They represent the company at various clinics, speaking to kids and distributing basketballs.

They work regular jobs only to save enough money to continue their hoops odyssey. Their summer schedule will take them through Detroit, Chicago and Los Angeles.

Noel was most moved in Guilin, China. Kids flocked to the couple and treated them like celebrities. The monumental moai statues created by the Rapanui people on Easter Island awed Angelina. Townspeople took them to a big community soccer game.

Africa and Eastern Europe are on their travel list, and they eventually will ask the Basketball Hall of Fame if it would like the ball — after, they hope, 10,000 people, including Agassi, have shot it.

The Andreonis will be forever grateful to Spalding. By landing the company as a sponsor two years ago, they could decline job offers in Florida and buy a fixer-upper in Moose Jaw next to Noel’s parents’ home.

Noel was able to spend invaluable time with his father, Ned, a popular coach and teacher in the area who died in September from complications of a heart attack.

“I was right beside him, holding his hand and stroking his forehead,” Noel said. “The little bit of faith Spalding had in us brought us back to Moose Jaw. That will always be in the back of my mind, no matter what.”