Banners and jerseys should be returned to places of honor. But the NCAA should atone as much as it can-even if some gestures are largely symbolic. In reality, the NCAA will never be able to fully atone for selling the labor of college athletes while denying them even a sliver of the enormous proceeds. Gotta say, and this is a rarity, but I agree with Jemele Hill, who wrote this at The Atlantic: Maybe that would have won him more supporters and made people more sympathetic to his situation. People on the other side of the fence will point out that Bush could have been more contrite, and been more apologetic for breaking the rules that governed amateurism at the time. None of this small beans “Barstool athlete” bullshit we’re talking prime endorsement deals with the country’s biggest brands. If NIL existed 15 years ago, he would have raked in the dough. The NCAA made a lot of money off Reggie Bush and the USC Trojans back then, and if anybody deserved a slice of the pie, it was him. I don’t know if there’s a right or wrong answer. If we’ve reached this same conclusion about NIL and athlete compensation, then isn’t Bush worthy of these ex post facto corrections? Our society has advanced to a point where we no longer see wrongness there, and so we’re trying make past decisions more congruent with our new way of thinking, where possible. This was before their personalities were at each other’s throats over issues of race and politics.īut going back to the question I rhetorically asked, aren’t we a society that tries to right wrongs, even if rules were broken at the time? We’re now releasing drug offenders from jail, because we see how ridiculous it was to give prison sentences to black men who sold or smoked marijuana. I used to watch his highlights endlessly on ESPN, when ESPN still did highlights. He was fucking electric on the gridiron and one of the best college football players of all time. In a sporting vacuum, his on-field achievements were not boosted by any illegal substance or unscrupulous methods. He never cheated the game, right? He wasn’t out there using performance-enhancing drugs. They got hit pretty hard in the aftermath of the whole thing, which was a big story at the time. They were aspiring marketer types who were hoping to sign Bush.Īs a result, he had to return his Heisman trophy and USC had to vacate 14 wins while losing 30 football scholarships over the course of three years. “If he broke the rules before the rules changed, then does he have any kind of case?”Ībout 15 years ago, it was revealed that Bush and his family received around $300,000 in perks and money from an agent named Lloyd Lake and his partner, Michael Michaels.
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