Time for USC To Kick Real Scoundrels Off Campus And Bring Reggie Bush Back

One problem with jumping on bandwagons is sometimes you miss the back hatch and suffer internal injuries.

But I am fully on-board with the “Free Reggie Bush” discussion campaign now taking place down at Felix Chevrolet.

Never mind that it is being promoted mostly by former Trojans now practicing journalism.

Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar and right is just right.

Part of NCAA sanctions levied against USC in 2010 included a provision that the school "disassociate” from Reggie Bush.

The school complied by expunging his name from the annals, like Stalinist Russia, and sent his 2005 Heisman Trophy back to New York.

Bush became “Reggie Asterisk” in a USC media guide that had more redactions than the Mueller Report. Bush was barred from campus and the BCS stripped the Trojans of its 2004 national title as the Trojans took their place in the dark hole of intercollegiate history.

The one good thing about time is that it puts distance between events and allows for context.

I thought the heavy sanctions against Bush and USC were appropriate at the time they were handed down. The loss of 31 scholarships and a two-year bowl ban were consistent with sanctions levied against Alabama and Miami.

But, in the immortal words of former Washington AD Barbara Hedges, after she flip-flopped on a decision, “That was then, this is now.”

Reggie Bush and his family took money and lodging from an agent in advance of being able to pay that debt back with the first-round money he was one day going to receive.

What Reggie Bush did, compared to what has transpired since at USC and across the USA, was a parking ticket.

So, yeah, it’s time to welcome Reggie back on campus, retire his No. 5 jersey, give him his Heisman back, restore USC’s 2004 BCS title and get on with the business of “disassociating” from the snakes that have caused real damage to USC and college sports.

Since Bush was banished to purgatory, USC has become the University of Scandal Central. The L.A. Times won a Pulitzer this month for uncovering a Keck Medical cover-up that fish-rotted from the head down.

Yet, I read in Thursday’s L.A. Time that former USC president Max Nikias, who resigned under a cloud, remains a tenured professor at the university?

If there was any justice, the school should issue Nikias uniform No. 86, drape a curtain over it, and then let him go teach physical ed in Barstow.

If you thought what Reggie Bush did was wrong you haven't been paying attention to USC becoming Exhibit A and B in the college admissions scandal. A senior AD in the department skimmed more money at USC than Bush ever dreamed of.

And here’s the thing: Bush earned his money off campus from a third-party. He was worth every penny and very soon players of his caliber will earn far more in college than he did.

Everything related to Bush must be put in context.

If you accept that college sports is a free-for-all sleaze market, yet vow to keep watching because it’s still fun, then Reggie Bush must be let off for "time served."

The NCAA sanctions against Bush where, as it turns out, a bigger scam. Paul Dee, the University of Miami AD who presided over the infractions committee, said the case against USC was “three-feet thick.”

Three feet was more like the BS he made us step in.

Dee sanctimoniously bellowed that USC, even if it didn’t know about Bush, should have known.

“High-profile players demand high-profile compliance.”

Meanwhile, at Miami, under Dee’s watch, a booster named Nevin Shapiro provided strippers and other benefits to more than 70 players from 2002-2010.

The NCAA came down on Miami with a love tap.

Donna Shalala, the president of Miami while Shapiro prowled the halls, was so damaged by the fallout she is now a U.S. Congresswoman.

Since Bush, Ohio State coach Jim Tressel lied on an NCAA compliance form knowing that he was covering up a memorabilia scandal.

Tressel was punished by being named President of Youngstown University.

Look, things change. Since Bush, we have become a rogue nation of tweeters, whiners, shouters and excuse makers. Lying, every day and under oath, has apparently become no big deal in America. Some of us cheat at golf.

We are not, in general, at our most flattering stage. A player who beats his girlfriend is innocent if he plays for us; guilty if he plays for you. We'll step over the homeless to get to the referee who blew a first-round playoff call.

If you want to really tune in, read Yahoo! and Dan Wetzel's coverage of the the latest federal bribery trial, datelined NEW YORK: Wetzel is laying bare the bottomless barrel of NCAA-supervised scum.

"It was ugly and pathetic in ways that the trite debates over amateurism can't understand," Wetzel wrote Thursday. "It's begging for complete and utter reform. And no one with any powr to change it cared enough to come and watch."

So, if CBS is going to give Bruce Pearl a sugarcoated pass for his past NCAA sins, then Reggie Bush can be forgiven his.

If Dick Vitale and USA Today can openly campaign for Rick Pitino becoming UCLA’s basketball coach, people can campaign for Reggie’s return to the Coliseum.

If Chris Webber can be allowed back at Michigan, Reggie Bush can be allowed back.

If Sean Miller can still roam the campus of Arizona, ah, you know the drill.

Look, I don’t condone a lot of this pond grime, but hypocrisy and head turning is the deal we've cut with ourselves in exchange for exciting NCAA Tournaments and football title games like USC vs. Texas.

Former Oklahoma Coach Barry Switzer, a Machiavellian before all of us, laid it out before the 2007 season.

I asked him, in his home-office in Norman, about USC being stripped of its 2004 BCS title win over Oklahoma. He asked me repeat to him the score:

“55-14.”

Switzer looked me square in the eye.

“I still know who won the game and who’s the best team,” Switzer said. “And Stoops knows too. That don’t change history.”

USC, interestingly, didn’t need Bush in 2010—but it needs him now.

The Trojans are a 2-4 start away next year from firing Clay Helton in October.

Reggie Bush and Matt Leinart, two of USC’s biggest former stars, are joining forces next fall on Fox for a Saturday “College Game Day” show.

Also joining that crew will be Urban Meyer. It stands to reason Bush and Leinart can help woo Meyer out of retirement to coach USC.

But USC, first, has to make good with Reggie.

Here's a come-full-circle game plan: the Trojans should invite Bush back for the 2019 home opener against Fresno State.

You could argue the greatest performance ever by a USC athlete was turned in by Bush, in 2005, at the Coliseum, against Fresno State. Google Reggie Bush vs. Fresno.

This isn’t so much about forgiveness, or sentimentality as it is about time, context, reassessment and reality.

Free Reggie. It just wouldn't seem right if one of the Charles Manson girls got out on parole first.