OT: Reggie Bush goes in on Mark Emmert

Submitted by FrankMurphy on December 20th, 2022 at 6:42 PM

These are pretty strong words.

I've never had much of an opinion on Reggie Bush, but it's hard to argue with him here. Seeing as how the rules under which he was punished (for the horrific and unconscionable act of engaging in commerce) have since been struck down by SCOTUS as a blatant violation of antitrust law (in a 9-0 ruling, no less), it should probably be Emmert and the NCAA who are put on the defensive now, not Reggie. They should reinstate his Heisman.

I wonder why the NCAA has gone quiet on me? They had a lot to say last year. These are some pretty serious allegations. Don’t run now Mark, the party is just getting started! Mark Emmert is liar, a conman, a thief, but most importantly he is a coward. Hello Heisman Trust 👋🏾 pic.twitter.com/O8JNzm3EOt

— Reggie Bush (@ReggieBush) December 20, 2022

BoFan

December 20th, 2022 at 10:23 PM ^

He is wrong and no one cares about his selfish wining. There are millions of things to care about in this world. Who cares about his cheating and Heisman gripes. If the guy had one ounce of integrity he would drop his whining and maybe do something worthwhile with his blow-horn. Like donate to the OSU freshman striken with cancer. 
 

He broke the rules as they were when he played and he was penalized for it. Now he wants the new rules to apply to him (which with NIL there are some but the NCAA has no hope of policing all the crazy number of infractions).  What an idiot argument Bush has.  It’s almost Hershel Walker level dumb logic. 
 

Edit: His argument is that he wants the new rules to apply to him. But it turns out the benefits he received from a wanna be agent have nothing to do with the rules that changed and are still a violation.  

Joined: 03/09/2012

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BoFan

December 21st, 2022 at 12:50 AM ^

Get your facts straight and stop reading surface level shared facebook posts.

What was unconstitutional was a player’s ability to profit off of his or her name or likeness and that the NCAA can’t limit the educational benefits provided by a university. It is still against the rules for a player to accept benefits from an agent which is what Bush did.  It is also against the rules for any kind of compensation to be tied to attending a certain school which Bush did not do but which is out of control now.  

The fact that NIL limits were unconstitutional doesn’t mean they were not well intended to create an equal playing field.  Similarly, laws passed by congress (or court opinions from SCOTUS) that have been in place for many years but then later overturned does not mean you can reapply the new ruling retroactively.  People have to be able to act under a current set of rules. Your argument would suggest that we can go back a prosecute people retroactively under a new SCOTUS ruling.  That’s absurd.

Further, it absolutely should be against the rules for a player to negotiate NIL before he enrolls.  The long-standing NCAA rules were designed, in the case of NIL poorly, to create an even playing field across all schools for recruiting, coaching, and training and to allow college athletes to also be students.  NIL without limits and enforcement has destroyed that. 
 

 

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SF Wolverine

December 20th, 2022 at 6:49 PM ^

Saw him at August (restaurant) in NO when he was dating KK.  With client who insisted she go over and interact with him.  I was mortified, but she did, and he and KK were immensely gracious.  Cool story, bro.

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stephenrjking

December 20th, 2022 at 7:02 PM ^

USC wasn't clean, and neither was Reggie.

I'm quite certain that Vince Young wasn't either.

They were also generational college football players that produced perhaps the best two-man Heisman race in the history of the award and faced off in what is probably the best college football game ever played at the conclusion of an epic season (remember, the Bush Push and "touchdown Manningham" were two moments that would be the national highlight of most seasons and happened at literally *the same moment in time*).

Reggie is the only player to have his Heisman arbitrarily taken away. It doesn't matter to me; he is the Heisman winner for that year. But it matters to him. And, while he did indeed participate in disqualifying behavior, so did a lot of other Heisman winners. I'm a pretty black-and-white right-and-wrong person, but the trite arbitrariness of enforcement has resembled justice or fairness or "rightness" to me. 

I don't know the backstory on the Emmert stuff and can't comment on it. His tweet doesn't come off that well to me. But he deserves to receive into his possession the Heisman Trophy he earned on the field. 

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mjv

December 21st, 2022 at 9:11 AM ^

Touchdown Manningham happened probably 15-30 minutes before the Bush Push.  I watched TD Manningham from Section 24.  By the time I got to the Grey Lot (the parking lot that surrounds the baseball field and Yost), I was walking by a post-game tailgate in the Grey Lot, I watched the final USC drive, which culminated with the Bush Push.  

Given my disdain for ND at the time, and lack of insight into the rampant cheating at USC, I was delighted with the two game results I had just witnessed.

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FrankMurphy

December 20th, 2022 at 7:19 PM ^

The rules aren't just "different now". If the NCAA had changed its rules of its own volition, then you might have a point. But the rules under which he was punished were definitively determined to have been an illegal exploitative regime under federal law. It's Emmert and the NCAA who have some explaining to do, not Bush.

And in any case, the "you knew the rules, you did it anyway" argument is even more devastating to the NCAA than it is to Bush. The NCAA knew antitrust law. Their own lawyers warned them that their rules violated antitrust law. They kept the rules in place anyway. And now that they've been benchslapped, the ire that was directed at an those athletes who accepted "impermissible benefits" ought to be directed at the NCAA.

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