It’s Not Football, but Beban Enjoys a Real Successful Life

Student-athletes, listen to this man.

When the player once voted the best in college football knew it was time to quit, he quit.

He gathered his pads, mouthpiece, cleats, and stuffed them in the trash.

He drove to the airport, refused his professional team’s offers to pay for his flight, to provide one last physical exam, to wish him well.

He flew back to Los Angeles on his own terms, his suitcase nearly empty, his head full.

“It was hard,” he said. “I was bitterly disappointed. But I figured, ‘It’s time to get to work.’ ”

Within days, he was beating down warehouse doors in Commerce City, being drop-kicked by annoyed receptionists, staying one step ahead of despair while researching real estate opportunities for his new company.

Today, he is a president at the company.

Perhaps you have heard of CB Commercial, the largest commercial real estate services company in the country.

Perhaps you remember Gary Beban?

Thirty years ago, he won the Heisman Trophy.

Today, the only significant trophy in his Los Angeles office commemorates his victory in a company softball game.

Thirty years ago, he and O.J. Simpson were the town heroes, quarterback Beban running the offense at UCLA, Simpson running the ball for USC.

Today, while you hear too much about Simpson, this may be the first you have heard about Beban.

“I guess I’ve disappeared, at least in the sports section,” Beban said, chuckling. “But some of that may have been by plan.”

The trophy is on an upstairs desk in his suburban Chicago home.

The UCLA uniform and other memorabilia are in a closet in the cellar.

In a recent press release detailing his position as CB’s president of corporate services, the award is not mentioned until the fourth of five paragraphs.

When UCLA plays Arizona today at the Rose Bowl, Beban will be doing what he often does on brilliant fall Saturday afternoons.

“We’re taking the dogs on a bike ride to the park,” says Kathy, his wife of 29 years.

From the heart of a collegiate athletic system that fills its inhabitants with senses of invincibility and entitlement, some never escape.

Gary Beban did.

Student-athletes, listen to this man.

“Students need to look at college athletics as a bonus,” says Beban, standing comfortably in the pocket at 51. “As a starting point.”

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Just the other day, a house painter sneaked upstairs into Beban’s home office with a camera.

“None of his friends believed that he was painting the home of a Heisman winner, so he wanted to prove it to them,” Kathy said.

It is impossible to imagine something like that happening at the house of Steve Spurrier, who won the Heisman one year before Beban. Or with Simpson, who won it one year later.

That chronology made for some interesting Heisman reunion dinners.

“I would sit between them, O.J. on the right, and Steve Spurrier on the left,” Beban said. “Once they got going, there was barely room for me.”

Since the year Beban was given the award, as much for his heart and leadership as for his eight touchdown passes--that’s right, only eight all season--nobody has used the Heisman for less, yet benefited from it more.

In four years of fooling around with the NFL, he caught more passes than he threw--one to none.

Even Gino Torretta completed a pass.

Including his time as a running back, he touched the ball only seven times.

Even Johnny Rodgers returned more kicks than that.

For a while, Beban was the symbol of the Heisman Trophy winner gone bad.

While he was busy making good.

After his last chance with the Denver Broncos ended in 1971, when they wanted to convert him to safety, he could have gone into broadcasting, perhaps coaching, perhaps simply traveling around selling his name for as long as somebody would buy.

Instead, he decided to bang on warehouse doors for a company recommended to him by a teammate.

“I was brought up to work hard, and while athletics were fine, that is not why you went to college,” Beban said. “I knew I had to start a new life. I figured, the sooner the better.”

Two months later, then-Bronco coach Lou Saban phoned and asked him to return to the team. Beban declined.

“The advantage of an athletic career is that, probably, you are going to get to see some people that somebody else cannot,” he said. “But once you get in the door, whoever you are seeing will want to talk about those athletic things for five minutes. The next 25 minutes will be what you are about now.”

Today, Beban is bigger in real estate than he ever was in football.

He helps run a company with 6,400 employees serving real estate users, owners and investors in more than 200 cities in 35 countries.

Recent Heisman winners in the NFL are earning millions. Beban is involved in deals that add up to billions.

And all of it thanks to . . . football?

“There are a lot of things I’ve learned in football that become second nature to you, things that you use in a business career,” he said. “Discipline, sacrifice, teamwork, hard work, how to accept the rewards of that hard work, positive and negative.”

One of the ironies of Beban’s life is that even though he is UCLA’s only Heisman winner, he is not used by the school in its recruiting.

One of the neatest things is that he doesn’t mind.

“I am busy, they are busy,” he said, noting he spends only a couple of weeks a month in Los Angeles and attends only a couple of games a year.

“I would do whatever they want, but I am content with whatever they need. I am so grateful to UCLA for teaching me, helping me grow.”

Maybe student-athletes shouldn’t listen to this man. Who would believe a football star talking about his college days and saying he owes the school?

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NEXT FOR USC

WHO: California

WHERE: at California

WHEN: Today, 4 p.m.

TV: Channel 7

RADIO: KLSX-FM (97.1)

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NEXT FOR UCLA

WHO: Arizona

WHERE: Rose Bowl

WHEN: Today, 12:30 p.m.

TV: Fox Sp. West

RADIO: AM 1150