Several days ago, Sports Illustrated's Michael Silver wrote this. His thesis? Reggie Bush has some splainin' to do, and the NCAA should "compel" such testimony. FanHouse writer Brian Cook responded with: no bones. Silver suggested Bush be cleared from the NCAA record books and USC disassociate itself from the school's star.
He also had this to say:
Putting aside morality, here's what's at stake: If a student-athlete and his parents can get away with, according to the Yahoo! report, receiving well over $300,000 worth of financial inducements, those of us getting wrapped up in the games on Saturday will have a very hard time buying into the notion of competitive balance.
Yeah, about that. I find it hard to believe competitive balance was affected by the alleged actions of Bush and his family. The persistent allegation is that Bush and his family accepted cash, gifts and a home from several people as part of an agreement to form a marketing company once Bush entered the NFL draft. Such benefits are illegal per NCAA rules. Here's where Silver's competitive balance argument fails:
Bush was in his second and third seasons at USC and was not a threat to transfer to another program. The [alleged] benefits extended to him were via contacts not of the athletic department or USC boosters but low-life's his father had crossed paths with. Whether Bush had gotten something as small as a free football or as large as a family house matters not because he was already enrolled and locked into his USC education and playing career. Any such punishment would be towards a violation of a flawed "amateur" notion, not any doctrine about fair and even levels of competition. The games, the commodity the NCAA is in theory protecting, would be the same quality whether or not Bush's family had gotten the house.
It would be nice if Bush was more forthcoming and the college football public could learn the truth behind the allegations. It would also be nice if it rained ice cream and root beer but not everything pie-in-the-sky works our way. That said, Silver misses the mark in suggesting that the game's competitive balance is in doubt because of Bush's alleged actions.