LAS VEGAS (AP) – Ed O’Bannon knows it’s not over, far from it. He’s ready for the appeals, and welcomes a challenge to the ruling that could change big-time college sports forever.
After five years of battling the NCAA, O’Bannon isn’t about to back away from the fight. Not when he is such a believer in the cause.
“You want to go to the Supreme Court, let’s go,” O’Bannon said in an interview with The Associated Press on Saturday. “I’ve got my ticket already.”
The former UCLA basketball star and face of the lawsuit that has shaken the NCAA to its core could have been out celebrating Saturday, a day after a federal judge issued an injunction paving the way for future college football and basketball players to receive payments for service to their schools.
Instead, he was headed back to the auto dealership in a suburb, where he sells cars, happy that other players will get the benefits he and his teammates on the 1995 national championship team never did.