Should Reggie Bush get his Heisman Trophy back?

Whether or not to return the 2005 Heisman to Bush isn’t an easy decision for the NCAA. Let’s examine both sides.

The Heisman Trophy has been awarded to the best collegiate football player every year since 1935. Like Sesame Street used to say, there is one of the 86 years that is different. 2005 lists Reggie Bush as the winner, but notes that the award was vacated. It was vacated because Bush and his family were found to have accepted impermissible benefits of about $300,000 in cash, housing, a vehicle, travel and other gifts from a potential agent.

Bush has gone public with his request for the Heisman to be returned to him. That request comes now because effective July 1, collegiate athletes can profit from their name, image and likeness. It’s important to understand that we have two entities involved here. To make an analogy, this is just like Pete Rose not being in the Baseball Hall of Fame.

The Hall of Fame and its voters are not keeping Rose out of the Hall. They don’t have the opportunity to do that, because Major League Baseball has ruled him ineligible for the ballot. The Heisman Trust awards the trophy but only to those deemed eligible by the NCAA and Bush is ineligible right now.

The Trust told CNN, “Should the NCAA reinstate Bush’s 2005 status, the Heisman Trust looks forward to welcoming him back to the Heisman family.”

NCAA Football: Should Reggie Bush get his Heisman Trophy back?

As always, there are two sides to every issue. Let’s examine two points from both of those sides.

Return the Trophy to Bush

1. What Bush was punished for in 2005 is now legal: I’m a stickler for semantics so I have to put this one in context. Accepting payments in any form from a potential agent was not legal in 2005 and it’s not legal today. However, today collegiate athletes can accept payment for use of their name, image and likeness and had that been allowed in 2005 then Bush would have taken advantage of that and easily made $300,000 or more that way. So yes, Bush could have made that money today.
2.  You can’t erase what happened on the field: This is like the lawyer objecting even though he/she knows it will be overruled. That point might not be in the record, but it’s in the jury’s minds. Reggie Bush was the best player in college football for 2005. He just about got a first down every time he touched the ball. Between rushing and receiving, he got the ball 237 times and gained 2,218 yards. That’s 9.39 yards per touch. He found the end zone 18 times that year.

Do not return the Trophy to Bush

1. What Bush was punished for in 2005 is now legal: Yes, Bush would be allowed to accept that $300,000 today. But he wasn’t allowed to in 2005. If you get a speeding ticket on Monday for going 45 mph in a 35 mph zone and the speed limit is changed to 45 mph on Tuesday, you were still guilty of speeding on Monday and have to accept the consequences.
2. You can’t erase what happened on the field: No one can deny what Bush did on the field in 2005. No one can deny that those accomplishments were better than the accomplishments of any other collegiate football player that year. Does that mean Bush deserves the 2005 Heisman Trophy? Cue Lee Corso….not so fast my friend. The rules that Bush broke exist to prevent an unfair recruiting advantage. The penalty for breaking those rules is ineligibility, which is the only penalty that makes sense. If the NCAA found out prior to his freshman year that Bush accepted impermissible benefits then he would be immediately ruled ineligible and would never take the field. But that’s not typically how that works. Usually it’s discovered after the fact. So what else is the NCAA supposed to do? They have to hand down the same punishment that they would have handed down if they discovered the violations the month before the season. So, while there’s no denying what Bush did on the field, the point here is that he never should have been on the field in the first place.

As you can see, the NCAA’s decision is far more gray than black and white.

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