Ed O'Bannon Has Gone From the Hardwood to the Sales Floor

"Ed would stand out there and wait on customers," says Rich Abajian, the general manager of the dealership. "He'd be out there from 9 o'clock in the morning until 10 o'clock at night. The sun would be beating down. His customers loved him. It was a real treat for people to be around someone who had accomplished so much."

It was Abajian's name and phone number on that business card on the dresser, the one O'Bannon picked up after Rosa ordered him off the couch. Calling that number, giving his name, asking if there was still a job available -- there isn't much Ed O'Bannon has done in this world that was harder than that.

"It was tough showing up to work at first," O'Bannon says. "Here I am, 32 years old at the time, standing outside on that car lot, selling cars. I'm thinking, 'If I was to read an article about me, what would I think?' I said to myself [mimics reading a newspaper], 'Ed O'Bannon, former UCLA great, blah, blah, blah, is now a salesman at a car dealership in Henderson, Nevada.'

"After reading that, what would I say to myself? 'What happened to that guy?' It was hard for me to get past that, hard to come to grips with the fact I wasn't playing. What is my customer thinking? 'This guy's selling cars now? Times must be tough.' I fought with that for a little while."

Cliff Findlay, the founder of Findlay Toyota, was a former standout basketball player at UNLV, and has cultivated a team-like atmosphere at his dealerships by hiring ex-athletes and coaches who understand the concept. Abajian was a former college football standout and an assistant coach at UNLV.

Early on, O'Bannon was befriended by a soft-spoken Findlay salesman named Eric Ludwick, who could understand his pain like few others. Ludwick, who had been at Findlay for two years when O'Bannon showed up, was a former UNLV pitcher who spent parts of four seasons in the major leagues. Like O'Bannon, he entered pro ball as a phenom -- he was a second-round draft pick in 1993 and was once traded for Mark McGwire -- and like O'Bannon, he had been forced to go overseas, in his case to Japan, to make a living after flaming out in the United States.

At one point, observing O'Bannon's struggles, Ludwick pulled him aside.

"He says, 'Look, this is what you are. You're a salesman. Who cares?' " O'Bannon recalls. " 'Whoever is reading those [newspaper] stories isn't paying your bills. And you have to come to grips with [the fact] that's just what you are. Whether you're a plumber or a trashman or a salesman, you have to be that. And you have to be proud of it.' He said he had the same kind of problem when he started."

Ludwick, 37, said it took him about two years -- two dark, depressing years -- to make the adjustment, and it came at a steep cost.

"My marriage was pretty much wrecked because of it," he said. "I wasn't fun to be around. You grow up from age 4 or 5, playing T-ball, and you're always the best player in your league, and in Little League you're always the best, and in high school and college. Then you go to the minor leagues, and you're this bonus baby. When it all gets taken away -- it really didn't hurt my ego. I just felt like people give up on you. It was almost anger, like, 'How could you do that to me?'

"I've gotten to the point where it's so far in my past I can go about my day-to-day life without thinking about it. But there was a point when it consumed me. It's something I probably should have talked to someone about, because I spent nights just laying there and thinking about it. By losing it all, I figured out how to conduct myself on a daily basis with other human beings. And I'm happy about that."

O'Bannon still considers the lecture from Ludwick one of the critical moments in his transition from basketball star to salesman.