Beating the Bushes

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I was watching an NFL game last week.  I must admit I don’t really remember which one. I tend to watch pro football the way my wife watches LMN – it’s wallpaper, a song you have heard over and over, it could be surf, the wind, you know, white noise.  But suddenly there was a glitch, a disruption.  One of the commentators; again, my bad – big white guy, maybe a former player or coach? Anyhow, he said something like, “I don’t think Reggie Bush should give back the Heisman. He won it with his play on the field.” I was momentarily stunned that someone who makes that much money could say something so stupid.  Then, of course, I laughed at myself. So, today I would like to talk with people who earn their living as sports commentators or sports talk show hosts, particularly those who agree with the big white guy quoted above .  .  . 

Ladies and Gentlemen, may I speak frankly? 

Today I would like to talk with you about beating the Bushes.  No, not the George Bushes – that’s so yesterday.  I mean the Reggie Bushes – and I don’t actually mean Reggie himself.  If you overlook the fact that his greatest collegiate demonstration of broken field running was sprinting around all the regulations intended to determine eligibility for student athletes, Reggie is actually doing the right thing.  He is returning a trophy to which he has no right, because he had no right to be on the field.  Hence, I have an issue with all those folks who feel Mr. Bush should get to keep the trophy because “he won it with his performance on the field.”

Let’s do a little time travel exercise – maybe 1980, Lake Placid, NY, the Olympics.  The Miracle on Ice was not just the fact that the USA won the gold medal in hockey – the miracle part was that a bunch of American collegiate amateurs defeated a Soviet team that was by every definition a professional team.  The miracle was that despite the Soviets circumventing the spirit, if not the letter, of Olympic regulations, the American amateurs won the day.  And we were proud.  Allowing Mr. Bush to keep his Heisman would stand that perspective on its head – it would make Soviets of us all – because in doing so we essentially say that only what happens on the field matters.  How you get there is unimportant.  I hope the commentators who argue that perspective realize that by doing so they also stand four-square behind the use of performance enhancing drugs, behind tutors writing papers, behind special degree programs for athletes, because it is “only what happens on the field that matters.”  Shame on you.

In the interest of full disclosure, I need to admit that I am biased on this issue.  I am a college professor.  For more than thirty years I have told my students – and the hundreds of student athletes among them - that you play by the rules, that you do your own work, you become educated and no one can ever take that away from you.  Bush broke the rules of a world to which I have given my professional life.  Bush winning the Heisman was glaring evidence that sometimes cheaters do win, sometimes a person who is ineligible, who has no right to be on the field, gets the glory.  Letting him keep it would be saying, “And that’s OK.” To the extent that you think Bush should keep the Heisman, I repeat, shame on you.
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