- [Narrator] The NCAA we know today was founded in 1906
at the urging of then President Theodore Roosevelt
after a number of on-field deaths occurred
in the nascent and unregulated sport of college football.
But despite their initial mission of player safety,
the NCAA quickly found a new and profitable purpose
to fiercely legislate against and police
the concept of amateurism
wherein athletes playing sports for the NCAA member schools
do not receive any monetary compensation
or benefits for their efforts.
And as profit margins for colleges, leagues
and the NCAA itself exploded in the television era,
the glaring hypocrisy of the NCAA became an increasingly,
noticeable public relations liability.
By the 2000s, the NCAA was a bloated billion dollar business
overseen by a feckless careerist named Mark Emmert.
With their own internal enforcement system, fake cops,
and appointed committees, fake courts,
to determine infraction penalties,
fake laws and punishments,
the fun police from hell operated with a twofold plan
of preserving their business model of unpaid skill labor,
while convincing the public and their member institutions
that they had any relevant purpose beyond that.
Unfortunately for the NCAA, college football's modern era
was headlined by the University of Southern California.
The NCAA needed to maintain a Puritan facade of amateurism
to keep their scam going,
but USC embodied Hollywood.
The Trojans celebrated celebrity,
and to the celebrities that dotted the Trojan sidelines,
Reggie Bush was the marquee name they showed up for.
Bush was more than a Heisman winner for a national champion.
He was a brand name for Pete Carroll's burnishing dynasty.
One that looked at the game's
traditional blueprint for success, humility,
and seriousness at schools
all over America's flyover country and smirked.
College football's keystone cops hated the Trojans.
Reggie Bush's legacy paid for it.
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By the time he played his final college football game
in January of 2006, not coincidentally
considered the greatest in college football history,
Bush's career was nothing less than transcendent.
In a time in which football
was much more dogmatic about personnel and scheme,
Bush was the best player at multiple positions on the field.
So, instead of forcing him
to hone in on a particular position
or even bench him on special teams to avoid injury,
Caroll and offensive coordinator, Lane Kiffin, leaned in
and when Bush was in Cardinal and Gold,
USC almost never lost.
The Trojans' record was 37 and two
during his collegiate career
Bush and fellow Heisman winner, Matt Leinart,
helped guide USC to two national titles
and almost won a third before losing to Texas
in that greatest game ever.
USC won a lot, both on the field and in recruiting,
and they weren't afraid to enjoy it,
which is how they made a lot of enemies.
Including a rather sizable one in Indianapolis.
But Reggie Bush never spoke out against the NCAA.
He never railed against the absurd rules
of collegiate amateurism
or said anything outta the ordinary.
He was simply too big a star
at a place rivals and overseers resented
for making their stars too big in the first place.
Oh, and his parents needed a house.
As Bush was preparing for the NFL draft,
reports emerged about potential illegal benefits
from "sports marketers" to he and his family
during his time at USC.
And this was an era where media were quick to pounce
in defense of an NCAA rule book
that they genuinely believed kept the sport fair.
Bush put out short lawyer crafted statements
denying any wrongdoing,
but didn't say anything else publicly.
But in 2007, Bush was sued by marketing agent Lloyd Lake,
to according to Lake,
recoup nearly $300,000 in cash and gifts
from Lake to Bush and his family.
Lake also said that he provided the Bush family
housing as far back as 2004 in hopes of signing Bush
to a marketing deal as a pro when the time came.
Bush claimed the family leased the home legitimately.
This act technically the family's alleged acceptance
of those gifts retroactively
violated Bush's amateur status with the NCAA.
Whose enforcement team opened an investigation
into the Southern Cal Athletic Department
across multiple sports.
The NCAA Committee on Infractions ruling was issued in 2010
and USC got absolutely slammed
in one of the heaviest sentences the body has ever given
to a program in violation of its rules.
At the time, Bush issued a rather boilerplate statement
that he was disappointed in the NCAA's ruling.
In 2020 though, Bush finally opened up
about his emotions regarding the penalties.
Then USC AD, Pat Hayden, initially told reporters
that Bush contacted him to apologize for,
"Poor decisions that led to the NCAA investigation."
But then backtracked later telling the Los Angeles Times
Bush never admitted wrongdoing and was simply contrite.
Even more out of the ordinary than the NCAA's heavy hand
was their attack on Bush specifically.
Since Bush was already in the NFL
where the NCAA has no control,
the only measure the NCAA could even attempt to punish him
was to erase his accomplishments.
So, they did.
USC was forced to totally disassociate
with Bush for 10 years, starting in 2010.
This meant USC could make no mention of Bush,
hang a picture of him on the campus,
or acknowledge that he ever played there.
Reggie Bush, USC Trojan,
one of the most exciting college football players
of his generation, was decreed not to exist in retrospect.
The NCAA's appointed Infractions Committee Chair
for the USC case was Miami Athletic Director Paul Dee,
who delivered a famous line at the ruling,
"High-profile players merit high-profile enforcement."
But Bush's fall was far from broken.
The FWAA, the Football Writers Association of America,
announced that they would no longer recognize the Trojans
as 2004 national champions endorsing the NCAA's decision.
Bush and USC were pilloried by the media
and he was reframed as a cheater and a fraud
despite not committing any act
that affected or changed his on-field performance.
In 2010, Bush was also the first player
in college football history, including OJ Simpson,
to be stripped of the Heisman Trophy.
At the time, the Heisman Committee
claimed the decision was made voluntarily by Reggie
after a meeting with the Bush family.
So, OJ Simpson, still a Heisman Trophy winner.
Reggie Bush stripped of the honor.
In 2022, Bush refuted
the Heisman Committee's version of events,
saying that the only,
"Meeting that ever took place was a brief conference call,"
in which he didn't even say much,
and that at the time he believed
he'd one day received the trophy back.
Bush was told years later by runner-up, Vince Young,
that he was offered the trophy and declined.
But throughout the entire NCAA infraction saga of 2010,
Bush was basically silent
playing for a Super Bowl winning team
and focusing on his own pro career,
but never acknowledging any wrongdoing.
His official comment in 2010 about surrendering the Heisman
was that he did it because of quote,
"persistent media speculation".
So, why the hell was the NCAA
so aggressive in punishing Bush?
Why wasn't this akin to a more normal infractions case?
Yes, Bush was found by the NCAA
to have received goods and services
that violated the NCAA's policy of amateurism,
but the punishment wasn't fitting the alleged crime.
It was always assumed that USCs
rogue-ish attitude and showbiz demeanor
enraged college sports traditionalists.
Most of whom work at or serve on committees
like the Committee on Infractions for the NCAA.
But very soon a lawsuit would reveal
it wasn't just a widely held assumption.
It was a fact.
The NCAA as an institution hated USC.
In 2011, espn.com reporter, Ted Miller,
encountered an industry source who confirmed that,
"USC was punished for its USC-ness."
that Pete Carroll's open door policy
created favoritism by the media
and the welcoming of celebrities
was an unfair recruiting advantage.
"It wasn't against the rules, but everyone hated it,"
the source said.
That was just a start.
Buried in the slew of punishments issued to USC by the NCAA,
now former USC running backs coach, Todd McNair,
was hit with something called a show cause penalty
for having knowledge that Bush
allegedly took improper benefits.
So, McNair sued the NCAA in real world real court
for what he alleged was a campaign of malice
that cost him his own career.
Years into the legal process,
the suit created a 500-page document dump of emails
by NCAA employees and committee members made public in 2015
after the NCAA begged various judges not to unseal them.
McNair was right.
The NCAA did way more than just impartially police
one of its member institutions for a violation.
In one email, the NCAA's Coordinator of Appeals
compared improper benefits to USC players
to the Oklahoma City terrorist bombing in 1995.
In another, errors in the investigation
were openly discussed.
Damning as it was, the McNair case
did not change the penalties against USC or Bush
and the NCAA got what it ultimately wanted.
The Trojans fell from the top of college football
and the governing body could boast
that decline as a scarecrow to other schools,
except the NCAA was next.
From 2010 to 2020, the 10 years that Bush
and USC were forcibly estranged,
the NCAA began to rot from the inside
and battle a severe change in public opinion on the outside.
Right after their ruling against Southern Cal,
the NCAA massively bungled a case
against the University of Miami.
In which NCAA investigators were caught lying in interviews
and lawyers were paid to get their clients
to cooperate with the NCAA.
Ironically, the same Paul Dee
who served on the committee that crushed USC
and publicly admonished Bush was running a program far more
"Out of control by the NCAA standards."
The Miami scandal and the investigator's misbehavior
was so embarrassing the entire enforcement department
of the NCAA was flushed out, restaffed and reorganized.
But in 2017, the Baylor football sexual assault scandal
drew silence from NCAA enforcement,
because despite a culture that protected
multiple rapist student athletes
from various sexual assaults, including victim intimidation,
there was no improper benefits
or NCAA specific violations to be found.
Year after year waves of other
mismanaged NCAA enforcement cases
started to wear down the NCAA's credibility.
And cultural sentiment shifted against the amateurism model
as college sports revenues exploded.
Then in 2021, the Supreme Court itself crushed the NCAA
in a nine nothing unanimous vote
that ruled college athletes had a constitutional right
to profit off of their own name, image and likeness.
Scrambling to catch up, the NCAA amended its bylaws
to permit revenue to its student athletes
for name, image, and likeness or NIL.
Now, Bush's crime of receiving a fraction
of what he was worth at the height of his celebrity
and marketability was officially
within the rules of the NCAA.
Meanwhile, Bush's NFL career ended in 2017
and he was warmly welcomed back by USC in 2020
at the end of the 10-year disassociation.
He also became a college football analyst on Fox.
With his alma mater behind him
and the entire landscape of amateurism radically altered,
Bush started to go public against the NCAA
to get his damn Heisman back.
On the I Am Athlete Podcast,
Bush said that the NCAA investigation was "sloppy"
and claimed that the NCAA never looked into the potential
that Lake and his business partner, both convicted felons,
were blackmailing the Bush family.
Bush also sent out a series of cryptic tweets
about the NCAA potential hush money and Emmert.
But as of 2023, nothing has come of his promise.
In January of that year, Bush was selected
to join the College Football Hall of Fame.
Unlike press associations, the National Football Foundation
who runs the Hall of Fame has never litigated inclusion
against the rules of the NCAA.
But the game's highest individual honor still eludes Bush.
He officially requested reinstatement
of his 2005 win of the Heisman to the trust
on the very day that NIL became permissible
within NCAA rules in 2021.
He also publicly requested that his stats
at USC be officially reinstated.
Of course, the trust immediately chickened out
and passed the buck to the NCAA
claiming they'd love to welcome Bush back to the family,
if the NCAA cleared him.
With a chance to make amends and create a mea culpa
for their now publicly confirmed bias and wrongdoing,
the NCAA displayed their reliable consistency
in showing an absence of any character.
Issuing a statement that Bush
was a recipient of pay for play during his time at USC.
An allegation that to this day was never proven publicly
and the NCAA also announced
they wouldn't revisit previous cases in light of NIL.
To this day, the Heisman record
is blank for the 2005 season.
(upbeat piano music)
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