Reggie Bush's Heisman

This is a tough issue. On this specific instance I think that Bush should be stripped of the Heisman. He was not eligible to receive it. That said, it should not be given to anyone else. You can’t just give it to Vince Young because he was second in the voting, because if Bush was not in the voting, a lot of his votes might have gone to Leinart who was 3rd. It gets way too messy and it is far too long ago to revote. Just leave it that nobody gets it.

The whole system is not fair for the students and even worse for the schools who may be completely clueless about what happened and they suffer the biggest penalty. You have a bunch of young adults who are most likely going to make a lot of money in the next couple of years but are dirt poor now. You tell them that they can’t take money from anyone and they can’t even get a job to have a bit of spending money. The penalty for taking money is that it is possible that they could be investigated and if the investigation happens soon enough they will lose their eligibility to play college ball (so they’ll go pro the next year which they are probably doing anyway). Then, you throw them to the wolves who can offer them anything that they want with no consequences.

How is that system supposed to keep the students from not taking what is offered to them? If we feel the need to ensure that these athletes retain their amateur status, the NCAA needs the support of the legal system to have be severe punishments (fines and jail time) for the agents/boosters/whoever that are giving the money to the students. They also need to rethink letting the athletes get jobs. Perhaps they do this through the school so that they can regulate that the students really are working for pay and that they are getting reasonable wages for the work that they do as opposed to paying a stud athlete $150 an hour for washing windows on the basement floor of the buildings downtown.