- Ed O'Bannon entered the public eye as a basketball player
but his foremost legacy might be as a plaintiff.
Years after his playing career,
O'Bannon saw his own collegiate likeness
in a branded video game.
Having received zero compensation for the game
or the college basketball career depicted therein
O'Bannon took a historic stand becoming the face
of a class action lawsuit against the NCAA.
This was a pioneering challenge
of the league's ability to profit
off the images of unpaid athletes before it was popular.
To do so, O'Bannon rallied important people
and platforms to battle a monolith.
He helped stir open discussion of predatory practices
and a cultural reconsideration of so-called Amateurism.
O'Bannon's lawsuit was a success in its own right
and it informed further opposition to the NCAA's power.
He will forever be a key figure in college
athletes struggle for fairness.
But why him out of countless college athletes?
What made Ed O'Bannon the right face for this cause?
If you understand Ed's other preexisting legacies
you'll see why.
Let's meet these versions of Ed O'Bannon in the prism.
As a senior at Artesia High School outside Los Angeles
the savvy high flying 6'8" lefty forward
was named All-Star Game MVP
and California's Mr Basketball.
O'Bannon was First Team All-American
in a class full of future NBA talent.
He led Artesia to the state championship in 1990.
An accomplishment made even sweeter
with his younger brother, Charles O'Bannon by his side.
Ed got scholarship offers from everywhere
but he knew exactly where he wanted to be.
The hottest spot in college basketball, not far from home.
Las Vegas, Jerry Tarkanian's UNLV Runnin' Rebels were cool,
entertaining, and excellent.
They had just won their first national championship
in 1990. By adding O'Bannon and fellow recruit Sean Tarver
alongside the returning upperclassmen UNLV
fully expected to repeat.
Only one thing could mess up this plan
and Coach Tarkanian was frank about it.
For years, Tark had tested the limits
of the NCAA's amateurism doctrine.
He had even battled the league in front of the Supreme Court
and lost in the shady aftermath of UNLV's recruitment
of Lloyd Daniels potential NCAA sanctions loomed.
O'Bannon and Tarver gave their verbal commitments to UNLV
but Tarkanian encouraged them not to sign letters of intent.
He wanted his recruits to have an out
in case eventual sanctions
stripped UNLV's opportunities to compete for more titles.
It was a gamble
an unusual act of courtesy from a powerful coach.
O'Bannon was ready to sign, but he took Tark's advice
just in case. It changed Ed's life,
because he was about to run headfirst into NCAA rules
for the first time.
In July, 1990, the NCAA dropped the hammer
delivering a surprisingly harsh pile of sanctions
that included an immediate 1991 postseason ban.
The Rebels could not even try to repeat their
championship run and their players expected to suffer
without that national spotlight.
So in August, O'Bannon
and Tarver took the option they had been given
switching their college choices to UCLA.
More on that soon.
Let's just stay in Vegas for a sec
because in November the NCAA reversed part of its penalty.
Tark cut a deal.
The postseason ban would be delayed.
So UNLV could defend its title
in 1991. And they nearly did. Months later in March Madness
the Rebels ran all the way to the Final four
where they lost by just two points
against one of the greatest Duke teams ever,
the eventual champions. UNLV players believed
and still believe that O'Bannon
and Tarver would've been enough to push them over Duke
if not all the way.
O'Bannon still fantasizes about waiting a little longer
and winning at the school he really wanted to attend.
As recently as 2015, O'Bannon described getting grief
from UNLV fans for fleeing.
While O'Bannon doesn't absolve Tark
and Company of wrongdoing,
he believes they broke rules that were unfair to begin with.
And in his 2018 memoir blames the NCAA
for ruining his destiny to win a title at UNLV.
Instead, Ed O'Bannon went to UCLA.
It was closer to home
and it was familiar since his dad attended briefly.
But unlike the super hot Rebels, UCLA's basketball
program was old news.
Ed wouldn't be joining a super team
He'd be trying to return the Bruins
to a glory they hadn't felt
since the John Wooden led golden era
of the sixties and seventies.
Ed didn't expect much.
He resolved to boost his NBA appeal then get out ASAP.
But that wasn't in the cards.
In October of 1990, O'Bannon landed awkwardly
after dunking in a post practice pickup game.
It looked bad and it was. O'Bannon tore the ACL
and meniscus in his left knee. Before it began,
Ed's freshman year was over.
Instead of spending the '90-'91 season
on a deep tournament run with UNLV,
Ed spent it at UCLA rehabbing from surgery
watching destiny unfold without him.
Oh, and even away from the program,
O'Bannon had NCAA investigators knocking at his door
with questions about his UNLV recruitment.
That is a tough freshman year,
and the '91-'92 season didn't inspire confidence
in a turnaround.
A second surgery delayed O'Bannon's return until mid-season
after which he registered sparse minutes and meager stats.
He didn't look anything like himself.
This was at O'Bannon for a time.
The path Ed chose took a miserable turn and the one he
didn't choose created a hypothetical that will
linger forever. But it got better.
With a full healthy summer to train.
O'Bannon looked reborn in the '92-'93 season: he scored,
he rebounded,
he formed a deadly one-two punch
with Sean Tarver and a burgeoning two-man game
with point guard Tyus Edney.
O'Bannon had never intended to stick around at UCLA
but now he was enjoying himself
and they were getting tantalizingly close.
Ed missed a last second shot to upset one-seeded Michigan
in the '93 NCAA Tournament,
a Bruin collapse that only stoked his desire to stay
in school and finish the job.
So too did a shocking first-round loss
to Tulsa in the 1994 tournament.
O'Bannon probably could have been a first round draft pick
after his redshirt junior season,
but he wanted more.
Plus he was reunited with his brother Charles now.
Might as well see this through.
Now the team captain, O'Bannon devoted his fifth year
to basketball, eliminating everything
but the pursuit of a title.
O'Bannon and his fellow upperclassmen broke huddles
by shouting "Kingdome," the location
of that season's tournament final.
When his teammates lagged in the first half
of an early season game against Kentucky,
O'Bannon reamed them out in the locker room,
which apparently worked.
He went after his own brother in front of the rest
of the team when he felt Charles's effort was lacking.
And Ed led by example on the court. With Tarver graduated,
O'Bannon pushed his scoring average over 20 points.
He took more threes and hit a pristine.
43% of them. O'Bannon ranked near the top
of the Pac-10 in scoring rebounding blocks and steals.
He was conference co-play of the year,
a first team All-American
and recipient of several other awards.
O'Bannon played solid ball
throughout the '95 NCAA tournament,
though the early going is best remembered for Tyus Edney's
buzzer beater to escape a second round upset
against Missouri.
Thereafter, UCLA took down some strong opponents.
They survived Ray Allen's Yukon Huskies in the Elite Eight
and they ran away in the second half
of their Final Four matchup against Big Country
and OK State. Edney was the star in that semifinal victory
and Charles O'Bannon actually outscored his brother.
But the final was different.
It belonged to Ed.
On April 3rd, 1995, UCLA rolled over Arkansas to win it all.
Ed O'Bannon was named most outstanding player
punctuating the title run and his protracted college career
with the game of his life.
Ed never left the floor, devouring the Razorback front court
for 40 straight minutes.
O'Bannon's 30 points
and 17 rebounds constitute a statistical marvel only
one person had ever achieved before in a final for UCLA.
This was monumental.
It still is.
It was their first national title
since the seventies and their last one for decades to come.
1995 is an island of glory in the modern history
of a program most celebrated for its distant past.
Ed would never have been associated with UCLA
let alone an indelible part
of its history without NCAA meddling.
But he ended up creating immeasurable value
for the university in recruiting,
merchandise, TV rights, ticket sales,
and yes, eventually video games.
Ed's work generated attention and capital.
You know, like an employee.
Unlike an employee
O'Bannon had yet to collect a single dollar
but surely his windfall lay ahead.
Ed's senior masterpiece boosted him back near the top
of NBA draft boards. SI's Jack McCallum guessed
that historic final had earned O'Bannon 50 million
in the future.
Well, according to the Washington Post,
Ed O'Bannon made about $7 million
as a professional basketball player.
Ed doesn't feel sorry for himself.
It's a lot of money for a normal person,
but that's his point.
By his late thirties when he thought he might be
wrapping a long and lucrative NBA career.
Ed O'Bannon was a regular guy selling cars for a living.
What happened?
Well, the knee played a part for sure.
O'Bannon finished his college career
with a resounding display of fitness
but pre-draft medical exams showed arthritis
that might hamper him as a pro.
O'Bannon never again suffered a major, acute knee injury
but it appeared to affect his game in subtle, critical ways.
Strength, vertical leap,
durability, even healthy,
the slender 6'8" O'Bannon was a classic tweener
in an era unforgiving to tweeners -
skill and size in that positional gray area for forwards.
He really needed a team to embrace his game for what it was
not what it could or should have been.
And Ed's college coach saw something else perhaps related
to all of the above: diminishing passion.
Maybe in the right developmental milieu,
O'Bannon could have adapted,
but Ed felt disillusioned from literally
the moment he entered the league.
Just like with college,
O'Bannon wanted to end up with an NBA team
on the West Coast - anywhere close to home.
Well, he didn't get that.
The New Jersey Nets loved what they saw in Ed's workout
and with the ninth selection in the '95 Draft picked him.
His homesickness set in right there at the draft.
I swear you can see it on Ed's face
when David Stern announces his name. [Stern] "Ed O'Bannon from UCLA."
Along with the geographic inconvenience
the Nets presented pure basketball challenges.
In a slow, grinding era
of NBA ball, coach Butch Beard ran one
of the slowest, grindingest systems around,
and not with much success.
Beard expected his forwards to wrestle in the half court,
nothing like the wide open ball Ed played in college.
Since he didn't fit beard's concept of a front court player,
Ed found himself running point,
which he didn't like.
Ed didn't seize his early opportunities
in games with shooting numbers well
below what he produced in college.
He turned a bit of a corner in early '96
but missed several weeks with a separated shoulder
and any momentum O'Bannon built fizzled.
When the Nets fired everyone
and turned their whole operation over to John Calipari
Cal cut Ed's minutes, then threw him into a huge trade.
The Mavericks barely used Ed then they traded him
to the Magic who waved him.
While his draft classmates enjoyed contract extensions.
Ed struggled to rekindle his reputation in the CBA
then decided to head overseas.
O'Bannon would never again get an NBA job.
He opted to pack it up and stop bothering in 2004,
the year he turned 32.
These things happen, truly
Ed O'Bannon is one
of many college superstars whose games didn't translate
to the NBA.
He is not alone in attributing some of that to knee issues.
But Ed O'Bannon didn't fail.
Failure doesn't look like this.
O'Bannon just happened to succeed
at an unfavorable time for him anyway.
Ed's body had a finite amount
of specialized high quality labor to offer,
and he used it up in the segment
of an elite basketball player's career
the system won't pay for,
no matter how much value that labor generates.
These experiences and outcomes don't make Ed special
but when combined, they form a crystal clear example
of the inequities in college sports
the cracks and crooks in its pipeline to the pros.
What makes Ed O'Bannon special is
that he had the audacity to say
so he made an example of himself.
In doing so, Ed helped open the floodgates
of a movement for athletes to get a better deal
than he ever did because of these versions of Ed.
This Ed was ready for the challenge.
Thanks so much for watching this episode of Prism.
There's a lot more where that came from
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