Sporting Their Resumes

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Canyon Ceman was chatting with his friend Kent Seton, a Beverly Hills attorney, about the difficulty of finding a job despite Ceman’s M.B.A. from UCLA’s prestigious Anderson School of Management.

Seton, a former tennis pro, was thinking of tips he could give to Ceman, a former beach volleyball champ, when he realized there might be many other former athletes who could use help transitioning into the business world.

So Seton launched AthletesTouch last month with former Philadelphia Phillies player Justin Blaine, who landed a gig as a wealth manager with Morgan Stanley Smith Barney in Woodland Hills after retiring from baseball in 2008.

The goal of the networking group is to build a membership of former college and pro athletes who are in the L.A. business community, and then connect them with others looking for new careers.

Job hunting can be especially daunting for people who excelled at sports to the point they were able to become pro athletes, said Seton who played on the Association of Tennis Players circuit before becoming an attorney for non-profits.

“You are starting at the bottom again where you don’t know anybody,” he said.

The concept immediately proved fruitful. At AthletesTouch’s launch meeting June 25 at Westwood’s Regency Club, the room was abuzz with former jocks making connections.

A group of 40 gathered to hear former Harvard football player Christopher Myers talk about his role as chief executive of CVB Financial Corp. in Ontario and how the economy is impacting the banking sector.

“There is an instant draw to a group like this,” said Blaine. “You get together with guys from different paths and you feel what each other went through the highs and lows.”

Seton and Blaine are recruiting former athletes with a simple criterion.

“They have to pass strict qualifications basically Justin and I liking them,” Seton quipped.

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