Reggie Bush Scandal

Reggie Bush: Is He to Blame for USC’s Sanctions? “What happened to the days young children could look up to their sports heroes with pride and think that they someday would want to be just like them?”, (Finnegan 4). This question is now being asked more often than ever. The sports stars we look up to and admire are surrounded by talks of cheating. One prime example of this happening is the case of Reggie Bush. Reggie Bush was a running back at the University of Southern California. At USC, he acquired many awards and he broke many records. Bush, along with Coach Pete Carroll, led USC to the top of the college football world (Gray 3). On January 4, 2005, USC defeated Oklahoma in the BCS National Championship 55-19. Bush accounted 149 total yards (Timeline 4). On December 11, 2005, Bush won the Heisman Trophy. He received the second most first-place votes in the award’s history, second behind OJ Simpson (Timeline 18). On January 4, 2006, Bush and USC lost to Vince Young and the Texas Longhorns 41-38 in the BCS National Championship game. Bush, however, accounted for 279 total yards and one touchdown (Timeline 21). Bush is alleged to have taken money and illegal benefits from multiple sources during his USC career. These allegations were viewed by the NCAA and were determined to be true. Therefore, USC encountered many penalties, which were considered by many too harsh. The NCAA says that they wanted to make an example of Bush and USC.
Reggie Bush is not to blame for the allegations against him and, as a result, the sanctions against USC. Instead, his step-father, LaMar Griffin, is at fault in this situation. Griffin abused Reggie Bush’s future potential in order to gain illegal benefits. Bush was used as a scape-goat by Griffin and is now being falsely punished. Griffin should incur all of these punishments, not Bush. However, the real damage to Bush is his loss of proper standing in society’s view, which cannot be fully recovered even if he