Aug. 31, 2007

The biggest moment in author, historian and NBA legend Kareem Abdul-Jabbar's UCLA career had nothing to do with basketball -- it was an essay he wrote. Heisman Trophy winner and global real estate executive Gary Beban's most memorable Westwood moment was only marginally related to football, but it taught him never to be late for anything in his life.

Los Angeles Police Department Captain Anita Ortega, a hoops superstar, was in the sixth grade when she had her big UCLA moment, and it was written on the back window of a Volkswagen Bug. And for veteran teacher Jose Lopez, it was a skeleton doubling as a tutoring aid, not his famed exploits on the soccer field, that stayed with him.

The quartet of sports heroes, along with fellow UCLA Hall of Famers Cormac Carney (football player and federal judge) and Dr. Dot Richardson (softball Olympian and surgeon), reveal their big "UCLA Moments" in a new NCAA and Pac-10 television ad campaign breaking Sept. 1.

The campaign was conceived and produced by Paul Keye, president of Los Angeles-based Paul Keye & Partners and copywriter on the famed "Californias" campaign for the California Office of Tourism. The spots were directed by Santa Monica, Calif.-based Green Dot Films' Brent Thomas, a UCLA alumnus and co-creator of Apple's legendary "1984" Super Bowl spot.

None of the new spots include any game, campus or classroom footage. Instead, they focus on each of the six subjects standing before a plain white background and answering one simple yet powerful question: What was your big UCLA moment?

Explains Lawrence Lokman, UCLA assistant vice chancellor for university communications, "We have this legacy of great athletes who are also substantive people who have excelled beyond their sports. So we thought we'd do without the stats and the rankings you usually hear in institutional spots and really say who we are as a university."

"You expect these highly successful athletes to choose a moment on the field, on the court," adds Keye, "but they talk about having their brains stretched, their sights raised, their lives changed."

A total of seven 30-second spots will air on regional and national telecasts of Bruin football, men's and women's basketball, men's and women's volleyball, and women's soccer. Thirty- and 60-second radio commercials narrated by UCLA alumnus Mark Harmon, star of the CBS hit series "NCIS," accompany the TV effort. Both TV and radio spots end with the tagline "UCLA Student Athletes. Winners Then. Winners Now."

The TV ads can be viewed by visiting ucla.edu.