USC takes down original report that labeled Josh Show a ‘hero’

The story of how senior cornerback Josh Shaw injured his ankles last weekend has turned into a disaster for USC. Shaw originally claimed the injuries occurred after he jumped down two stories off a balcony to save his drowning nephew. He was hailed as a hero.

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But as speculation that he was lying continued to grow,  Shaw admitted his lie on Wednesday and the program released a statement announcing his suspension.

"“We are extremely disappointed in Josh,” Sarkisian said in the statement. “He let us all down. As I have said, nothing in his background led us to doubt him when he told us of his injuries, nor did anything after our initial vetting of his story.“I appreciate that Josh has now admitted that he lied and has apologized. Although this type of behavior is out of character for Josh, it is unacceptable. Honesty and integrity must be at the center of our program. I believe Josh will learn from this. I hope that he will not be defined by this incident, and that the Trojan Family will accept his apology and support him.”"

USC has understandably caught a significant amount of heat for this. That is, in part, due to the school being the outlet that reported Shaw’s original story as fact without seemingly doing any research to figure out if it was true.

The reason Shaw’s story went national in the first place is because USC wanted to have the feel good story of the year, even if they didn’t 100 percent know it was accurate.

Now, the school is distancing themselves from their work, taking down the initial report from their website.

But this act is meaningless at this point. The damage is already done. Everyone knows USC screwed up and don’t expect anyone to let them off the hook for this one anytime soon.