I have been waiting for some time to unleash my complete opinion of the entire Reggie Bush situation. I have been waiting for the NCAA to reach its decision on the matter. However it occurs that the decision that they may, or may not have wanted to unleash on the world looks less and less likely to happen with the dawn of each new day. So I present to you my complete and unfiltered take on Reggie Bush and his time at USC. Keep in mind that this is merely part one of two, the first being the actual Bush situation, the other being a breakdown of the complete and utter incompetence of the NCAA as a holistic institution.
Keep in mind that your position on this subject has a lot to do with your belief in the notion of the Student Athlete. Your take on that prompt will shape your opinion of all that follows below. Now, there are two ways to look at the situation, the first is that Bush is the victim in this entire sad sequence of events, the other way to look at this is to assume the Bush is a truly, unbelievable greedy and manipulative person looking for as much money as he can get his hands on as soon as possible. At the onset of the investigation I was leaning heavily on the former. Given recent events on the behalf of Bush I have begun to shift my opinion more towards the center. However I do not think he has done anything wrong.
The saga has been spun entirely off of the actions of a now dissolved company, New Era Sports and their attempt to land Bush as the anchor of their company. As the reports go this company which was connected to Lamar Griffin, Bush’s stepfather, showered the family with gifts, money, and a house in an attempt to get Bush to sign on the dotted line and become the flagship of the company for the coming years. The complications arose when Bush began to distance himself from Michale Michaels and Lloyd Lake, the men behind the company. When Bush signed with another agent attempted to recoup money “invested” in the active recruitment of Bush to this company. I am sure the general though process for Michaels and Lake had a lot to do with their preexisting relationship with Lamar Griffin, and how they would bank on Griffin to have Bush sign on the dotted line. I am inclined to think that Griffin acted on his own and without consultation with Reggie about the matter. In an attempt to get the best for is step son Griffin wanted to have a team already formed for him the instant he turned pro. Good idea but terribly misguided and ultimately doomed to fail.
Lloyd Lake and Michale Michaels seem to have very limited understanding of what they were doing. For whatever reason, lack of logic and more than likely a flawed understanding of basic economic theory seem to be at the top of the list. First of all starting a company is a risk in the first place. That is something that can’t be disputed, starting from scratch uses massive amounts of capital regardless of the venture. To begin with these guys were on a novice at best. Basically they watched Drew Rosenhaus on TV say no comment a million times at a TO press conference and thought, hey I can do that. They were wrong they were amateurs from the start. A smart person would think to at least consult someone, if not hire them outright, who knew what the fuck they should be doing. Not Lake and Michaels, they thought that they could just wing it. That’s the lack of logic bit. Now any two year old who has every gone on an Easter egg hunt knows better than do engage in any business plan as recklessly ill conceived as any words that come out of Rosie O’Donnells mouth. You never ever put all your eggs in one basket. What Michaels and Lake did was try to buy a lottery ticket named Reggie Bush. A smart person would start small and build a reputation before going after a potential client the status of one Reggie Bush. Not Llyod and Michael, I mean shit they know his step father. That’s money in the bank. It never occurred to them to measure their input of time and energy in the direction of Bush because it might not work out. It never occurred to them that a person like Reggie Bush, with his prodigious skills, charisma and a Q rating that is out of this world, would want to sign with someone who actually knows what they fuck they are doing. They couldn’t be bothered with measured and logical thought, and you know what happened to them? Bush didn’t sign with them instead opting for a little bit of rational thought. Of course Lake and Michael’s didn’t like that and wanted to recoup the investment in their ill conceived company that was doomed to fail from day one. but who to get their money from, why of course their corner stone that never was. One Reggie Bush.
Now think of this situation from the position of Bush. I would bet the farm that this would have been just one of several attempts by companies to throw themselves at Bush and I highly doubt if he didn’t receive perks from those other attempts, and I don’t personally find anything wrong with that, more on that latter. Michaels and Lake had to have been on the periphery of Bush’s mind during his whirlwind Junior season at SC. I doubt that he had close contact with him on a consistent basis. They might have spent some time in the SC locker room after games but I don’t see that as anything substantial. I highly doubt that Bush would be sitting down on a consistent basis with those idiots plotting the future of the Reggie Bush brand. Even if he did have a sit down he clearly was not impressed with what they were offering him. Clearly, because he did not sign with New Era. Opting instead for people who know what they are doing. That’s just smart.
Now the crux of my argument lies in one of my principal beliefs that has shaped the way in which I look at much that transpires in the broader world of intercollegiate athletics, most will disagree with what I am saying. I hold no punches when it comes to the myth of the student athlete. Now I am not tarring all student athletes with the same brush, for the most part the vast majority of people playing sports at the major college level are indeed students, but they are athletes first, and are made as such by the expectations that are place on them by the rest of the sporting world. It is unbelievably unfair to most of them it is true. I can say with a great deal of confidence that the term has no application for those at the highest level of the sport. The Reggie Bush’s and Vince Young’s of the world, the ones whose names are known throughout the land aren’t student athletes in my estimation, nor should they be held to the same standards. Yes that implies that a double standard is in place, its the same one that has been in place for decades. People like Reggie Bush become the face for their institution, they have their faces splashed across posters, billboards and magazine covers. One of the main threads that can be drawn from this saga is the idea that Reggie Bush was acting as a man apart, or above his peers, which he was and still is. The people behind this story, the attention and respect starved reporters at yahoo! sports, approached the notion that people on Bush’s status level have a different set of rules that apply to them as if this was the grand mystery of our time. Bush might have an overactive Hubris, but it was not bestowed upon him from birth. We gave it to him as we become more and more enthralled in his unparalleled talents.
In picking your side on this you have two options to choose from. You can take the side of Lloyd Lake and Michael Michael’s and their brand of stupidity that is really unmatched in this particular context in recent memory. Or you can pick Bush who apart from the actions of the two idiots mentioned above seems to have done much of anything that is wrong. If you haven’t figured it out I side with Bush, and I would even if the allegations are found to be true. I don’t find what he did to be that wrong on personally offensive. There are people out there who have jumped on the settlement reached by Bush with Michaels as a tacit indication of guilt on the part of Bush. The theory is that anyone who is innocent would not buy the silence of one who could bring suit against him. Problem is that the theory doesn’t apply to actual court proceedings where out of court settlements are the norm and actual trials are rare in civil proceedings. Its not a tacit admission of guilt, merely an indication that he wants to be done with everything.
