YOUTH BASKETBALL: THE MARKETPLACE : O’Bannons Wary of Sales Pitch : Youth basketball: The family has tried to shield its sons from college bidding wars by establishing a set of strict guidelines.

Ed O’Bannon used to ride a bicycle past some of Los Angeles’ roughest streets, where drive-by shootings are nearly as common as mail delivery.

Still, he said it was the best way to get to and from Verbum Dei High School four years ago.

His mother, Madeline O’Bannon, was not so sure.

“I would wait every day for him to come home, just scared to death,” she said.

Her fear was not unfounded.

Five years ago, a local gang had attacked a Perry Junior High School bus that was taking O’Bannon and other students to school. An eighth-grader sitting next to O’Bannon was injured when a rock was thrown through a window.

“They jumped on the bus like a terrorist attack,” recalled Charles O’Bannon, Ed’s younger brother.

“It was like a gang fight,” Ed said.

The rock barrage was commonplace when Charles attended Perry. Still, Madeline and her husband, Ed Sr., hoped better times.

Then Charles came home from school one day and announced: “Dad, I’m not going to have a choice, I’ve got to join one gang or the other or else fight every day of my life.”

So, the family moved to Lakewood, where these days, Madeline O’Bannon’s biggest concern is her sons’ futures, not their pasts.

The O’Bannons have become Southern California’s first family of youth basketball. Ed is one of the country’s most sought-after players as a 6-foot-8 forward-center who will graduate this year from Artesia High School, and 6-5 Charles is one of the country’s best freshmen.

For the last month, one of the hottest topics on the high school basketball rumor mill has concerned Ed O’Bannon’s choice of a college.

He will choose among Arizona State, Louisiana State, Nevada Las Vegas, Syracuse, UCLA and USC.

This is the kind of decision that is stressful not only for the player, but the family.

Not only are coaches presenting their best sales pitches to Ed, they are mindful that Charles will be a prize in three years.

So, Ed Sr. decided to control recruiters, lest they control his family.

“You hear stories all the time that the phone rings from the time you wake up to the time you go to sleep,” he said.

Recruiting has gone smoothly, observers say, because Ed Sr. designed a plan with Artesia Coach Wayne Merino that could serve as a model for families going through the recruiting process.

In a letter sent to colleges in September of 1988, Merino set recruiting guidelines. He asked coaches to contact him at Artesia High instead of directly involving the O’Bannons. The family did not accept home calls until last August, and only from head coaches or chief assistants.

Before last season began, local news outlets were sent interview guidelines in an attempt to further shield the family from unwanted disturbances.

“We didn’t want the kids to think all they had to do was play basketball,” Madeline said. “They had to do their homework and do chores around the home.”

Although the O’Bannons have gone to great lengths to control the situation, some snags have developed that have forced them to hold off signing.

O’Bannon is awaiting the results of a second Scholastic Aptitude Test because he failed to score 700--the NCAA mandated cutoff for athletes--the first time.

He is confident that the second result will be above the minimum, and he will not be a Proposition 48 student, thus losing a year of basketball eligibility. If that does happen, he may have to eliminate schools such as USC that do not accept Prop. 48 athletes.

O’Bannon also is awaiting the outcome of an NCAA investigation into the program at Nevada Las Vegas. If that program is put on probation for alleged violations stemming from the recruitment of former New York prep star Lloyd Daniels, O’Bannon may decide to go elsewhere. An NCAA decision on Las Vegas, however, may not be announced until next fall.

As low-key as the adults have made it, O’Bannon has not escaped the long reach of recruiting hyperbole. When he walked in to watch games at USC, UCLA and Arizona State last season, the fans at each gym gave him a rousing welcome.

Arizona State made signs and T-shirts that read, “We want Ed.”

The six schools in contention for O’Bannon were well represented at Artesia’s season-ending banquet recently. UNLV Coach Jerry Tarkanian and Arizona State’s Bill Frieder were guest speakers.

Merino’s involvement in recruiting also has come under scrutiny, partly because of the nature of the process. Third-party influence is a phenomenon that has increased among L.A. area basketball players in recent years. It is a process in which youth coaches act as quasi-agents in dealing with college recruiters.

Merino, however, said that the family asked him to help alleviate the recruiting crunch and act as a buffer. He said he has not manipulated recruiters for personal gain, such as delivering a star player for an assistant coaching position.

“You need total participation by the family, first, and by the school,” Merino said. “It’s sad a lot of kids don’t have that. It should be one of the responsibilities of the high school coach to know the NCAA rules (for recruiting).”

Still, when Merino left the Slam-n-Jam league in Carson last year to start the rival American Roundball Corp.’s conference at Artesia, Southland observers watched with arched eyebrows. Merino was able to deliver the area’s best player--O’Bannon--to the rival league although both had long associations with Slam-n-Jam.

Was O’Bannon used? His family says no. Ed Sr. said the change was beneficial to all concerned. Merino was able to play host to the ARC league at Artesia and coach the team of his choice, which included most of the members of his high school team.

The arrangement seemed to help the Artesia Pioneers, who in the season just past won the Southern Section 4-A title and the State Division II championship. O’Bannon averaged 26 points and 10 rebounds a game.

Issy Washington, director of the Slam-n-Jam league, said Merino left when Washington refused to outfit Artesia’s lower-level teams with Reebok basketball sneakers. Reebok helps sponsor Slam-n-Jam. Nike helps American Roundball Corp.

“He wanted shoes for all his coaches,” Washington said. “Our deal is only to give them to varsity teams and their coaches.”

Whatever transpired, O’Bannon seems detached. He and his family are fiercely loyal to Merino, who was hired to coach at Artesia about the same time the O’Bannons moved into the school’s district.

Most high school coaches also say Merino has handled O’Bannon’s situation well.

And that may be one reason the senior with the soft left-handed jump-hook shot has not left his perspective in the paint.