Imparting momentum from player movement

Hi guys,
I'm monkeying around with the rigid shape class, and I've run into a snag when using applyImpulse().

My test application has a bunch of "soccer balls" lying around. When the player collides with them, I'd like the balls to bounce away from the player.

Most of the solutions I've been looking at rely on the player's getEyeVector() or getForwardVector(), but that only moves the balls in the direction the player is facing. If the player backs into a ball, the ball attempts to bury itself in the player's buttocks, which isn't the effect I'm going for.

I've tried using the player's getVelocity(), but the ball flies off in strange directions. Do I need to convert from the players' axes to world axes, or am I completely off-track? (I'm severely math-impaired, so I'm guessing the latter.) =)

In the player's onCollision function, modifying code from rigid shape thread mentioned above:

if (%col.getDataBlock().category $= "PhysicsTest") {
	
		messageAll(NULL, "Hit object with velocity " @ %obj.getVelocity());
	
		// Apply an impulse to the object we collided with      
		%dir = %obj.getVelocity();      
		%vec = vectorScale(%dir, 2);
	
		// Add a vertical component to give the item a better arc      
		%dot = vectorDot("0 0 1",%dir);      
		if (%dot < 0)         
			%dot = -%dot;      
		%vec = vectorAdd(%vec,vectorScale("0 0 2",1 - %dot));      
	
		// Set the objects position and initial velocity      
		%trans = %col.getTransform();      
		
		// Heres the position and rotation.      
		%pos = getWords(%trans, 0, 2);      
		%col.applyImpulse(%pos,%vec);

Any help you can provide would be greatly appreciated!

-- JohnDopp