I Want My Money Back.

After all, Reggie got his Heisman

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The people at the Heisman Trust announced on Wednesday that Reggie Bush’s trophy win from 2005 was being “reinstated,” effective immediately. Bush was re-receiving his Heisman, the trust folks said, due to “enormous changes in the college football landscape.”

Say, that’s quite a vague little word salad. Let’s get more specific.

—Reggie Bush blatantly violated NCAA rules during the entirety of his tenure at USC. He knowingly took at least $100,000 in benefits from some guys who hoped to become his agents once he turned pro, actions that Bush knew were against NCAA strictures. He funneled a bunch of that money, housing, etc. to his parents, but he also drove some very nice cars to the Trojans’ practice field, nudge nudge, wink wink.

—The NCAA’s investigators uncovered all those violations, struck many of Bush’s records from the books, and heavily sanctioned USC (but not in time to get Pete Carroll, who’d skipped to the NFL by that time and left the flaming wreckage behind).

—The Heisman folks followed suit a few years later, placing the 2005 award essentially on hiatus. Bush returned his trophy. USC returned its replica.

—A couple of years ago, under direct threat of getting its clock cleaned in federal court, the NCAA changed all its rules and declared that college athletes henceforth can profit off their own name, image and likeness. (NIL = endorsements and memorabilia.)

—Heisman people to Reggie: Come home, king!

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And that’s it. You’re all caught up.

What the Heisman Trust said Wednesday was that, since nobody cares anymore whether college athletes get paid, Reggie Bush can have his trophy back retroactively. After all, the rules he violated no longer exist.

This is a fascinating logic turn. Let me give you a rough equivalent: I am driving down a residential street in my town, taking my younger son to someone’s house for a playdate, and I’m running late and driving too fast, and ultimately I get popped for going 38 mph in a 25 zone. Ticket. Fine. The works.

I grant you, this is a weirdly specific example. But stay with me: Many, many years later, I discover that the city has decided to raise the speed limit on that same street to 40 mph, since the old limit wasn’t really useful and didn’t wind up making traffic any safer.

I have no longer violated the speed limit! I want the ticket undone and my payment refunded.

This is where we are with the Heisman Trophy. Reggie Bush started campaigning to get his hardware back once the NIL rules took effect in 2021. He had a cadre of other Heisman winners in his corner, plus the USC foofs and some sportswriters with nothing better to do, and Reggie’s work as a college analyst on TV made people feel like maybe they knew him, and who cares, after all? Give the man his due.

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Given our penchant for revisionist history, this is perhaps not so stunning. It’s also not that important, certainly. But maybe the most interesting thing of all is how many people apparently don’t know what the Heisman Trophy even represents.

Wednesday’s actions should clear that up: The Heisman has nothing to do with the NCAA. It never did.

The trophy used to be awarded by New York’s Downtown Athletic Club, but since the early 2000s it is run by the Heisman Trust. In both cases, the organizations existed to hand out the Heisman Trophy, and that’s about it. The trophy itself is awarded for “outstanding performance which best exhibits the pursuit of excellence with integrity. Winners epitomize great ability combined with diligence, perseverance, hard work.”

Nothing about NCAA rules or sanctions in there.

We’ve so closely associated the NCAA with college sports for so long that maybe sometimes they feel inseparable. Clearly, they’re not. The Heisman people didn’t have to vacate the 2005 award in the first place, they didn’t have to wait years and years before reversing it, and they don’t have to explain themselves now.

They can do what they want, and what they want is to make the Heisman look good. Since the wind is blowing in Reggie Bush’s direction lately, this is what makes the Heisman look good, I guess.

Anyway, I want my money back.