Ed O’Bannon
Ed O’Bannon went from almost ending his college career before it even started — he tore his anterior cruciate ligament before his freshman season started — to being the leader of a UCLA Bruins team that won the National Championship his senior year. In 1995, O’Bannon was named a first-team All-American, and awarded the John R. Wooden Award, for most outstanding men’s basketball player.
After college, O’Bannon had a mostly forgettable professional basketball career, playing three seasons in the NBA before spending the next eight years overseas. However, his name has popped up again recently in the news, as he’s the lead plaintiff in O’Bannon v. NCAA, an antitrust class action lawsuit against the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). The lawsuit challenges the NCAA’s use of the images of its former student athletes for commercial purposes.