Report: Reggie Bush to be stripped of Heisman

HuskerfaninOkieland

HuskerfaninOkieland

Heisman Trophy Winner
Yahoo! Sports

NEW YORK (AP) - Yahoo! sports is reporting that 2005 Heisman Trophy winner Reggie Bush is expected to be stripped of the award by the end of the month.

 

The former Southern Cal running back would become the first player in the 75-year history of the award to have the Heisman Trophy taken away. The report also says the award would be left vacant for ’05.

 

The NCAA found major violations in USC’s football program and levied serious sanctions against the school in June.

 

The website on Tuesday cited two anonymous sources close to the Heisman Trophy Trust, who say the group’s investigation is almost complete and would agree with the NCAA’s finding that Bush was ineligible during the ’05 season.

 

Bush now plays for the Super Bowl champion New Orleans Saints.

 
HuskerfaninOkieland said:
Yahoo! Sports

NEW YORK (AP) - Yahoo! sports is reporting that 2005 Heisman Trophy winner Reggie Bush is expected to be stripped of the award by the end of the month.

 

The former Southern Cal running back would become the first player in the 75-year history of the award to have the Heisman Trophy taken away. The report also says the award would be left vacant for '05.

 

The NCAA found major violations in USC's football program and levied serious sanctions against the school in June.

 

The website on Tuesday cited two anonymous sources close to the Heisman Trophy Trust, who say the group's investigation is almost complete and would agree with the NCAA's finding that Bush was ineligible during the '05 season.

 

Bush now plays for the Super Bowl champion New Orleans Saints.
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Nice going Reggie.

 
I dont think VY should get it at this point. I do agree that he should have won it in the first place. USC had to guys up for the trophy that should show they are equally important to their team. Everyone know Texas would not have won or been in contention with out Vince Young.

 
I maybe going against the grain here but I don't think they should take it from him. It's not like he was caught taking steroids or something to improve his on field performances. All he did was take some money from an agent which I really don't think is that bad of a crime.

 
Why cant all this crap just go away already? The less I hear about USC, Pete Carroll, Reggie Bush, the better. I'm sure they prolly wish the same (but for diff reasons).

 
Bush forfeits his 2005 Heisman Trophy
CBSSports.com wire reports

Sep. 14, 2010

NEW YORK -- Reggie Bush took the unprecedented step of giving back his Heisman Trophy on Tuesday, saying the scandal over improper benefits while he was a star running back at Southern California should not stain "the dignity of this award."

…

Just after USC was sanctioned, the eight-member trust, based in New York, said it was considering what to do about Bush, who won in a landslide vote over Texas quarterback Vince Young.

The trust met Tuesday; it had no comment. Whether the 2005 Heisman will be vacated or given to Young remains to be seen. linky
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First, it’s not clear to me whether the Heisman committee took it back, or maybe just suggested that he give it back.

After thinking about this for a while, I’ve flip-flopped. A couple of times. I don’t think stuff that goes on *after* college should not affect a previously awarded Heisman. At all. But for Bush it was all about the things he did *during* college. They just weren’t uncovered until after he bailed out of USC for the NFL. So I guess it’s best that he just gave the damn thing back. Oh yeah, USC sucks.

 
As for Reggie, I say take away the trophy. There has to be accountability, and players have to understand that if they break the rules, there will be consequences. Breaking NCAA rules should result in losing college related awards and accolades.

As far as the Trophy, let it remain vacant. Reggie won. He is now ineligible. The trophy remains vacated for that year.

There is no possibly way to determine exactly who would have won without Reggie in the voting. Would Leinhart have gotten more votes? And how many people are now skewed in their perception with what happened in the NC game? Certainly Vince dominated and after that performance, was Heisman worthy, but unfortunately for Vince, games played after the voting for the Heisman have absolutely no bearing on the Heisman vote.

If Vince wants to be a class act, he will say no thank you (as he apparently has) to the award, despite the overtures of Texas and Mack Brown.

 
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Reggie Bush says that forfeiture of Heisman is not admittance of guilt.

METAIRIE, La. -- Reggie Bush said Thursday that his decision to relinquish his Heisman Trophy is "not an admission of guilt," just the best way to end the controversy.

"It's me showing respect to the Heisman Trophy itself and to the people who came before me and the people coming after," Bush said after New Orleans Saints practice. "I just felt like it was the best thing to do, the most respectful thing to do because obviously I do respect the Heisman. I do respect all the things it stands for."

The Heisman Trophy Trust had discussed reviewing Bush's eligibility for the award after an NCAA report concluded that Bush and his family had improperly accepted cash and gifts from sports agents while Bush was playing for USC.

Bush said he thought returning the award was the best way to move forward.

"I felt just to kind of silence all the talk around it, all the negativity around it -- I felt like this would be the best decision to do right now so I could focus," he said.

Bush was the landslide winner of the Heisman following a highlight-filled 2005 season in which he piled up 2,890 all-purpose yards and helped lead USC to the BCS national title game, which the Trojans lost to Texas.

Bush is now the first winner in the 75-year history of the Heisman -- one of the most prestigious prizes in American sports -- to forfeit the award.

"I feel like he's tried to put himself in a position to do whatever he can do to help the situation," said Saints defensive tackle Sedrick Ellis, also a former USC teammate of Bush. "He's always been a good guy as long as I've known him at USC and here in New Orleans. ... Hopefully [people will] finally leave him alone about it. It's five or six years ago. We need to let it go and move on."

Coach Sean Payton said Bush has "matured a ton here since we drafted him" and has "the full support of the players in the locker room."

"I know that he feels like this is a family -- a close-knit family -- and for him, just like the rest of us, it's about winning championships," Payton said. "He's done that once already and we're aspiring to win more."

Bush said he consulted family and some associates before forfeiting the Heisman, a move some of those close to him opposed.

"My mom and dad didn't want me to give it back," Bush said. "That's just the motherly and fatherly nature of parents. They understand it at the end of the day. They understand I'm a grown man and I've got to make my own decisions and this is a learning experience for me and anybody else coming after me. ... All I can do is grow stronger from here."

Allegations that Bush and his parents had accepted improper benefits while he was still an amateur athlete surfaced in 2006 and the NCAA began a years-long probe into the matter soon afterward.

The probe concluded this year and the NCAA in June cited USC for failing to monitor its athletes closely enough and punished the Trojans football program severely. The NCAA imposed a two-year postseason ban on USC and reduced scholarships.

While not admitting to anything in the report, Bush has said he regrets that his actions in some way led to sanctions against USC and caused controversy around his title of Heisman winner.

"I'm not happy this happened," Bush said. "This is just a part of life. This is a part of growing pains and becoming more mature. You learn. You grow. You get better. You get stronger and hopefully you never make those same mistakes again.

"How do I clear my name? I don't know. I'm not sure. This is the first time I've been in this situation," Bush added. "I've obviously got to brainstorm and get together with my team and see what we can do. I'm here to lend a helping hand to USC and any time they need me and any time I can do something to help them, they know I'm just a phone call away."

Bush said he hopes putting the matter behind him allows him to focus more on things like helping the Saints defend their 2009 championship.

"All I can do is focus on the future and move ahead and move on with my life and try to continue to help the New Orleans Saints win games, every year, year in and year out and be a constant contender in this league," Bush said.

Bush said he also wants to start a program to help high school and college athletes deal with the pressures and temptations that come when their ability provides them celebrity and fame before they've turned pro.

"You're still a kid, but you're still asked to make adult decisions," Bush said, alluding to a handful of college teams -- including North Carolina, Alabama, Georgia and South Carolina -- dealing with probes into whether their players had improper contact with agents.

"Whatever the NCAA has, whatever programs they have, aren't working and it needs to be changed. If it's not changed, it's going to continue and it hasn't stopped yet," Bush said. "It's going to continue year after year after year and you're going to see kids be ineligible. You're going to see great athletes missing their junior and senior year and seasons because the system doesn't work.

"Obviously something has to be changed. You've got universities making millions of dollars off these kids and they don't get paid. The majority of college athletes who come in on scholarship come in [with] nothing. That's where you have a problem. You're making all this money off these kids and you're giving them crumbs and then you're surrounding these kids with money and telling them not to touch it," he said.

Copyright 2010 by The Associated Press

Ummm yea right. Why would you willingly give away such a prestigious award if you werent guilty? :facepalm:

 
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