Gary Beban, UCLA’s Heisman winner, likes aura of current team

The only Heisman Trophy winner in UCLA history has seen this all before. 

A new coach. A program that had been in the dumps. Only a handful of wins in each of the previous few seasons.

The situation involving the current Bruins also presented itself going into Gary Beban’s sophomore season.

Former UCLA quarterback Gary Beban won the Heisman Trophy in 1967. AP

Everything turned out just fine that year. The 1965 team went on to upset top-ranked Michigan State in the Rose Bowl, earning it the nickname “The Miracle Bruins” from Sports Illustrated.

Can coach Bob Chesney’s Bruins do something similar?

Beban told The California Post in an exclusive interview that he was encouraged based on the team’s first scrimmage of the spring Saturday, which was closed to the media.

“There is a sense of spirit here that seemed to be missing before,” Beban said. “What I saw today and the direction and the underpinnings of the philosophies, I think those are the right components — I think they have the right attitude and the skill sets, and they’ve had the experience of winning.”

While Chesney’s most recent success came at the Group of Five level — the coach and his staff guided James Madison to the College Football Playoff before taking the UCLA job in December — Beban said it was something that could translate to the Big Ten.

“Winning is a formula at any level, and I’m convinced that the lower-level [philosophies] can win at the higher level,” said Beban, who was back on campus for a reunion of UCLA quarterbacks as part of a charity fundraiser. “I think that the right parts are here; now it’s a matter of the players putting it together.”

New UCLA coach Bob Chesney has what it takes to turn around the program, Beban told The California Post on Saturday. Los Angeles Times via Getty Images

Part of that involves leadership.

Beban recalled linebacker Don Manning standing up during that 1965 season and telling his teammates that they wouldn’t lose on California soil. Those words initially embarrassed Beban.

“I can remember saying, ‘Oh, my goodness. What is Don doing?’ ” Beban said. “And we didn’t lose on California soil until the ‘SC game my senior year — we went 14-0. It’s those kinds of things that need to be created to bring the program back to where it should be.

“That’s got to happen here, and the coach mentioned that they’re looking for who are going to be those leaders. We have a lot of new players here, and they’re going to try and figure out who are going to be the leaders to make those moves on the field that coaches just don’t do; players need to do it.”

Chesney has made a favorable impression on the Bruins alumnus known as “The Great One.”

“He’s focused, he certainly knows where he’s going and what he wants to do,” Beban said, “and he knows the components of what he needs to try and put together.”

Although it’s been nearly 60 years since Beban won the Heisman during his senior season in 1967, he said UCLA would produce another player to take home the most coveted award in the college game.

“Yes,” he said, “there will be another winner.”

In the meantime, Beban will continue to reacquaint himself with a campus that bears little resemblance to the one he strolled as a student. Back then, the school’s athletics complex consisted of three Quonset huts — prefabricated structures made of corrugated steel with a semicircular, arched roof — where the Luskin Center now stands. One hut belonged to the football coaches, another belonged to basketball coach John Wooden and the third belonged to athletics director J.D. Morgan and the school’s other coaches.

Now, Beban barely knows where he’s headed.

“I more than needed a map,” Beban said. “I had to ask people where I was going.”

Beban, who will turn 80 in August, plans to return for an anniversary celebration of the team’s Rose Bowl victory over Michigan State when the Bruins play the Spartans on Oct. 24 at the Rose Bowl.

“It’s a game that never fades,” Beban said. “It never diminishes one bit that we played and won that game.”

If history repeats itself, the Bruins could be on the verge of more special memories.