Wayne Gretzky was not the first Great One in Los Angeles. The hockey superstar wasn’t even in grade school when UCLA’s first and only Heisman Award winner, Gary Beban, earned the nickname. UCLA went 24-5-2 during the three years Beban was the quarterback. That span included an epic comeback win over USC in 1965, an upset over top-ranked Michigan State in the 1966 Rose Bowl (UCLA’s first Tournament of Roses victory), and a heartbreaking loss to the Trojans in 1967 that’s considered one of the greatest college football games ever played. In spite of the loss, Beban won the Heisman. A history major who exceled at academics and went on to become a top business executive, Beban never forgot why he was on campus. “Yes, I was an athlete,” he recalls, “but I was there for the classroom and the scholarship.”