BUSH DESERVES HIS HEISMAN, BUT BACK THEN, IT SHOULD HAVE BEEN FORFEITED
Let’s not be swayed by changing times and realize the mesmerizing running back was wrong to accept a rent-free home and money — meaning, a trophy that belongs to him today deserved to be surrendered
Throughout Los Angeles, in an advertising show more intrusive than those once-a-mile fake lawyers, the yellow billboards were commanding. There were 15. They were persuasive, larger than the freeway lanes, as donated by a longtime USC donor. “Hey NCAA … Give Reggie Bush back his Heisman!” each read.
“I’ve seen all of them,” Bush said. “I didn’t create the situation. The NCAA created the situation.”
Because times have changed radically and paying for a star player’s rent-free home is allowed in 2024 — all together now, “names, images and likenesses” — a 45-pound, cast-bronze trophy has been reinstated. One of college football’s enchanting running backs owns his Heisman, at last. Impermissible benefits in 2005 have become part of an athlete’s living arrangement, and if the NCAA mattered then in forfeiting his grand prize, it doesn’t now. The Supreme Court won the battle for whatever stands as semi-professionalism.
“I am grateful to once again be recognized as the recipient of the Heisman Trophy,” Bush said Wednesday in a statement. “This reinstatement is not only a personal victory, but also a validation of the tireless efforts of my supporters and advocates who have stood by me throughout this arduous journey.”
Yet, don’t group me with buffoons who say they’ve trashed the NCAA forever on this matter. Bush and his family cheated and took money, thanks to his representatives, and he deserved to be punished according to laws at the time. Same goes for USC, which vacated 14 victories and a national title-game triumph over Oklahoma. Once upon a time, men who walked down a street smoking joints were arrested by police. And they should have been stopped, as the rules declared. Today, I passed two road dopers on the way to lunch in Santa Monica. They will be ignored.
So, sure, they can claim what they want in the NIL culture. Bush can wonder how much money he would have made if he were born 17 years later — such as the No. 1 overall pick in the NFL draft, Caleb Williams, who made more than $10 million from Dr. Pepper and Wendy’s and other brands. He can say his parents were put through hell in the San Diego abode where they stayed. His pro career, he can protest, was damaged by massive penalties that forgot he gained 2,218 yards from scrimmage and scored 18 touchdowns in picking up 784 first-place votes, fifth-highest ever. “At the end of the day,” said Bush, “I’ve got to live my life.”
But it took time, sad to say, for higher academia to understand why athletes should make money when they’re making multiple millions for universities. We have to laugh when Michael Comerford states, as president of the Heisman Trophy Trust: “We considered the enormous changes in college athletics over the last several years in deciding that now is the right time to reinstate the Trophy for Reggie. We are so happy to welcome him back. Recognizing that the compensation of student athletes is an accepted practice and appears here to stay, these fundamental changes in college athletics led the Trust to decide that now is the right time to return the Trophy to Bush, who unquestionably was the most outstanding college football player of 2005.”
What I must ponder, as Bush’s jersey No. 5 is re-displayed at Heritage Hall on campus, is a possible gravy train for other college figures who lost in the past. Jim Tressel was the Ohio State football coach who resigned in 2011, when a tattoo-parlor scandal burned the program. Today, no one cares if players receive improper benefits from a salon and the owner, Edward Rife. At first, school president Gordon Gee said, “No, are you kidding? Let me just be very clear: I’m just hopeful the coach doesn’t dismiss me.” in due time, fans and media bombarded Gee and the board of trustees, and he suddenly wrote, “As you all know, I appointed a special committee to analyze and provide advice to me regarding issues attendant to our football program. In consultation with the senior leadership of the university and the senior leadership of the board, I have been actively reviewing the matter and have accepted coach Tressel's resignation.”
Should the school apologize to Tressel? Give him millions for his worn hide? The Buckeyes hired Urban Meyer, who won a championship, but today, the tattoo story wouldn’t make headlines — even as it involved a starting quarterback, Terrelle Pryor. So much for Tressel’s 106-22 record and eight Bowl Championship games in his 10 years. “He has also acknowledged making a serious mistake, and his resignation is an indication that serious mistakes have serious consequences,” Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany said at the time.
The Fab Five, too, have a beef. They changed the fashion formula of college basketball and almost won a national title with a starting lineup of true freshmen. Then Chris Webber and three other players took $616,000 of dirty money from Ed Martin, a banned booster. Today, no one would care at Michigan or anywhere else. Then? “We worked 100 years to do it the right way, but then you bring the Fab Five in and it ruins everything,” said Don Canham, the school’s athletic director for 20 years until 1988, who called the payment “a disgrace.”
The Final Four and conference banners were stuffed in a closet in Ann Arbor. Is it time to wipe the dust and have a celebration for Webber, Jalen Rose and the others? I discussed the matter with Rose on ESPN Radio closer to the time. He defended Martin. As he liked to say then, “Ed Martin was somebody that helped me have a winter coat on my back, so really, he’s not necessarily a booster of Michigan. He was actually a guy that was really friendly with the kids.”
We could find more victims. Jerry Tarkanian would be a hero as his UNLV recruit was caught in a hot tub with a booster. Remember Nick Nolte, in “Blue Chips,” who was nailed for everything? Still, let’s not go too far. When Jim Harbaugh breaks 2024 rules at Michigan, he very much remains liable, as we’ll see in three years of probation for the national champions. Let Bush have his hardware and his affirmation. “I want to make it abundantly clear I have always acted with integrity and in accordance with the rules and regulations set forth by the NCAA,” he said. “The allegations brought against me were unfounded and unsupported by evidence, and I am grateful that the truth is finally prevailing.
“I am thrilled to reunite with my fellow winners.”
If they give him a commercial, in the famed Nissan Heisman House, send everyone else away for the day. Eddie George was mauled once, remember, and let the home be Reggie Bush’s without a threat, as it always should have been in San Diego. Or so he would say today.
###
Jay Mariotti, called “without question the most impacting Chicago sportswriter of the past quarter-century,’’ writes general sports columns for Substack while appearing on some of the 1,678,498 podcasts and shows in production today. He is an accomplished columnist, TV panelist and talk/podcast host. Living in Los Angeles, he gravitated by osmosis to film projects.