Reggie Bush

Reggie Bush's gifts as a running back helped him win the Heisman Trophy in 2005. But there was one tackler Bush couldn't shake: the egregious rules violation the NCAA says he committed as a Trojan. According to the association's investigators, sports marketers plied Bush with cash and gifts, as well as picking up the tab for tens of thousands of dollars worth of housing for him and his family. In addition to saddling the USC football program with a whopping penalty, that transgression almost certainly would have led the Heisman Trust board to reclaim Bush's trophy.

Among those implicated by the NFL in the "pay-for-performance" bounty scandal of the New Orleans Saints is Mike Ornstein, former marketing agent for Reggie Bush. Ornstein, who served eight months in prison in 2010 for conspiring to scalp Super Bowl tickets and sell fake "game-worn" jerseys, is close friends with Saints Coach Sean Payton as well as many of the team's players and executives.    Ornstein is well known and well connected in NFL circles, having spent years working for the Raiders, and later as a consultant on Super Bowl teams in Green Bay and Baltimore.

Unbuckling the mailbag: Question: Reggie Bush was a fraud? Child, please! He made a mistake, but the kid is a good dude ? judgmental much? Ontay Johnson Los Angeles Answer: Let me answer your question with a few of my own: If Reggie is such a "good dude," why is he not welcome on the USC campus? Why did the school send his Heisman Trophy back? Why is USC going to have to vacate its 2004 Bowl Championship Series title? Why is USC going to lose 30 football scholarships, pending appeal, over the next three seasons?

The NCAA, in its infinite bureaucratic wisdom, slapped Ohio State's football program upside the head Tuesday. It certainly wasn't a love tap. Nor was it a kick to the groin, a feeling familiar to those who revere USC. In Columbus, Ohio, where college football ranks in importance only a tiny notch above visits from the Pope, there is weeping to match the gnashing of teeth. One local news report began by saying that the "NCAA had rocked Buckeye football to the core. " Out here, USC loyalists can feel Ohio State's pain.

Scheduled depositions in a civil lawsuit against Reggie Bush were canceled after the former USC running back reached an out-of-court settlement with the plaintiff. Bush settled with would-be sports marketer Lloyd Lake , who was suing Bush for nearly $300,000, a source with knowledge of the situation confirmed. The source requested anonymity because the individual was not authorized to speak publicly. Yahoo! Sports, citing a source, reported the settlement Tuesday night. Lake had claimed he provided Bush with cash and other benefits while the Heisman Trophy winner was playing for the Trojans in 2004 and 2005.

Reggie Bush is not an every-down running back for the New Orleans Saints. Question is, can he be an every-Sunday one? Seldom in his four-year NFL career has the former USC Heisman Trophy winner strung together productive performances in consecutive weeks. And the Saints, who are one win away from their first Super Bowl, would welcome a big game from him. "I try to be a difference-maker, especially in games like these," said Bush, whose team plays host to the Minnesota Vikings today in the NFC championship game.

Former USC tailback Reggie Bush on Tuesday became the first athlete in the 75-year history of the Heisman Trophy to forfeit the award, bowing to pressure from detractors in and around college football. After five years of staunch denials about any wrongdoing, Bush acknowledged in a statement posted on the New Orleans Saints' website that he made "mistakes"—though he didn't specify what they were. The player said that "persistent media speculation" he called "both painful and distracting" prompted his decision.

Chances are former USC star Reggie Bush is/was not the only Heisman Trophy winner to have taken improper benefits while participating as an amateur athlete in college. That was going to be the indignation column, contemplated at one time, before there became nothing about Reggie Bush worthy of being contemplated. Now we say: There are other Heisman crooks out there … so what? The Bush bottom line becomes this: He was the first Heisman winner to get caught on scholarship, and Tuesday he paid the ultimate price by announcing he was forfeiting his 2005 trophy.

USC Coach Lane Kiffin and his players, banned from bowl games for two seasons and functioning under other sanctions because of NCAA violations related to Reggie Bush , were largely unemotional Tuesday in the aftermath of Bush's announcement that he would forfeit the 2005 Heisman Trophy. "I respect any decision that Reggie made," said Kiffin, who was the Trojans' offensive coordinator in 2005. "I'm sure it was extremely hard for him. " Kiffin also reiterated a point he has made since the NCAA announced penalties in June.

USC's football fall Re "Sanctions could cost USC millions," June 11 A few years ago, a patient came into my office with a car magazine. The cover showed a smiling Reggie Bush next to a very tricked-out older Chevrolet. I believe Bush was heading into his junior year at USC. I remember thinking to myself, where does this kid get the money to invest and rehabilitate an older car into something so special? Who is giving him the money to do this? I am a dentist in my 50's in Woodland Hills, but I was aware there was a problem.

Hundreds of asterisks dot USC's football media guide, most resulting from NCAA sanctions related to Reggie Bush and the seasons he played for the Trojans. But where Bush might want an asterisk, there is none to be found. On a page listing jerseys worn by Trojans All-Americans, Mike Garrett's No. 20, O.J. Simpson's No. 32, Charles White's No. 12, Marcus Allen's No. 33, Carson Palmer's No. 3 and Matt Leinart's No. 11 carry asterisks denoting "jersey number currently retired. " Each of those players won the Heisman Trophy.

Two of the past 11 Heisman Trophy winners were running backs, and both have played for the New Orleans Saints — Reggie Bush and Mark Ingram. Bush doesn't have that stiff-armed statuette anymore. Ingram acts as if he never had one in the first place. "You wouldn't know it," Saints linebacker Jonathan Vilma said of Ingram's Heisman. "The way he comes out and works, wants to be part of the team, enjoys practices, you would never know it. " Vilma wasn't comparing Ingram to Bush, who this summer signed as free agent with Miami.

Scratch a die-hard Trojans football fan, and he bleeds grievance. Ever since a scandal involving former USC running back Reggie Bush resulted in the school being handed one of the harshest penalties ever by the NCAA, boosters and team insiders have been scanning sanction decisions against other universities for signs of unfairness. That's not quite what they got Wednesday, but the allegations of severe improprieties in the University of Miami's football program are certain to fuel even more resentment of college athletics' organizing body.

The chairman of the NCAA committee on infractions said last year the case against USC was, literally, a "three-feet. " That's how high the paperwork would stack, he said, if you started a pile on the floor. The chairman said the NCAA was going to make an example out of USC in the hope it would serve as a warning to other schools. USC football was slammed with a two-year bowl ban and the loss of 30 scholarships as the result of violations involving star running back Reggie Bush.

The victories, and a national championship they produced, are vacated. The trophies — a copy of Reggie Bush's Heisman statuette and a crystal football for a Bowl Championship Series title — are now ghosts of Heritage Hall. The forfeiture of those wins and mementos is just a fraction of what USC lost in the wake of some of the harshest penalties in college sports history — delivered largely because the NCAA found numerous violations relating to Bush. The Trojans men's basketball program also was punished for violations related to former star player O.J. Mayo, and the school actually paid some of that in cash: a $5,000 fine and the return of $206,200 it received for participation in the 2008 NCAA tournament.

USC football met the inevitable Monday when the Bowl Championship Series officially stripped the Trojans of their 2004 football national title. "This was not an unexpected outcome," USC Athletic Director Pat Haden said in a statement. "We will comply with all requirements mandated by this result of the BCS vote. " USC's title will be vacated, the trophy will be returned. No replacement champion will be crowned even though Auburn and Utah finished undefeated that season. The Associated Press long ago announced it would not strip USC of its 2004 trophy.

Rolling along Re "Skate park grinds at residents," Sept. 13 Skateboarders finally get a skateboard plaza, and neighbors are still complaining. Youths are off the street and have a place to hang out and perform their favorite sport. Parents have less to worry about because they know where their children are, and fewer people are bothered on the street by passing skateboarders. It is a win-win situation. Yet neighbors still complain about the noise of the skateboarders.

An appellate court ruling in a long-running lawsuit against Reggie Bush opens the door for Bush and USC Coach Pete Carroll to be questioned about whether the running back received cash and gifts while playing for the Trojans. The decision, released Monday, represents the latest development in a suit brought by would-be sports marketer Lloyd Lake, who claims he gave cash and gifts to Bush and his family beginning around late 2004. The state court upheld an earlier decision blocking an attempt by Bush's attorneys to force the suit into confidential arbitration.

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar can rest assured: He'll have a statue downtown long before Reggie Bush , Mike Garrett or anyone affiliated with the NCAA. … Lane Kiffin can only hope that "USC loses its appeal" is a one-day headline and not a general consensus among recruits. … If the Lakers wanted to bring in a coach who preaches defense above all else and is roundly criticized for running an unimaginative offense, they could have hired Ben Howland . … "With Mike Brown as coach of the Lakers," reader Bennett Tramer of Santa Monica, a Cleveland native and Cavaliers fan, emails to note, "look for the same offensive movement associated with Stonehenge, Easter Island and the Great Pyramid.

Former USC running backs coach Todd McNair, a central figure in the NCAA investigation that resulted in major sanctions for the school's athletic department and McNair, lost his appeal to overturn findings and penalties, the NCAA announced Friday. USC, which appeared before the Infractions Appeals Committee in January, is still awaiting a decision on its appeal. Friday's report noted that the NCAA's decision regarding McNair was separate from the university's appeal, "which has not yet been decided.