Bush flap shouldn’t be a surprise

[PARAGON]

<H2>Bush flap shouldn’t be a surprise</H2>
<P class=byline>By Jeff Schultz</A> | Wednesday, April 26, 2006, 05:11 PM </P>
<P class=dateline>The Atlanta Journal-Constitution</P>



Let’s start by obliterating suggestions that Reggie Bush has somehow been
damaged in recent days. He will still be the first pick in the NFL draft. He
just signed a lucrative endorsement deal with adidas.</P>


This follows Bush’s other deals with IceLink watches, Subway sandwiches and
General Motors’ Hummer division - all of which were verified Wednesday when his
mother was spotted wearing a new watch, while signaling for a left turn in her
new Hummer, as she pulled into a Subway parking lot.</P>


Reggie Bush is a great running back. He’s also an opportunist. You thought he
was different? He is bolting campus just as investigators are arriving. I
thought only coaches did that.</P>


The day after a reporter knocked on the front door asking who paid for their
house, Bush’s parents floored the gas pedal and left skidmarks in the driveway.
Now the story is that they were leasing. Since when do renters etch their name
in wet cement in the driveway, because I can’t ever recall a landlord asking me
to do that?</P>


We spend a lot of time shredding the givers - coaches, boosters and agents -
for $1,000 handshakes, cars and houses. We don’t spend nearly enough time
examining the takers. Because if Southern Cal somehow pays a price for something
Reggie Bush did while the player escapes to the NFL without a mark, he’s no
better than Jackie Sherrill or Lou Holtz, who made an art form of hop-scotching
from one campus to another to elude personal blame.</P>


Reggie Bush is not the exception. Reggie Bush is the rule.</P>


“This case is just the tip of the iceberg,” agent Pat Dye Jr. said Wednesday.
“It’s almost always done in cash so there’s no paper trail. It’s done with the
players, the relatives and the friends. With the salaries as high as they are
and the sleaze element that’s so prevalent in our business, I think it will
always be there.”</P>


Dye has long been one of the good guys in the industry. If he wasn’t
surprised by the news that Bush’s parents had been living in a new home in San
Diego, it’s only because he has witnessed so much regarding illegal financial
inducements in his 19 years in the industry.</P>


He laughed at that suggestion that Bush didn’t know his parents were living
in a house owned by a man who sought to market the player.</P>


“Do you not know where your parents are living?” Dye asked. “Do you not go
home for Christmas or Thanksgiving? He didn’t know any background about the
house?”</P>


As to how often would-be representatives solicit business with similar
payoffs, Dye couldn’t put a percentage on it, but said: “It’s pervasive in our
industry. It usually comes in less subtle measures: direct cash payments.
Theoretically, the player justifies it in his mind as a loan. The agent
justifies it as a loan. In many cases, these things are not repaid because the
player knows the agent won’t turn himself in. He’s not going to go to the school
and say, ‘Your player owes me 25 grand.’</P>


“I don’t have empirical data. But this is my 19th draft and I can tell you
it’s as bad as it’s ever been. There’s a proliferation of runners [who solicit
clients for agents] on campus. Typically, those are the bad guys while the
agents keep their hands clean. My father told me years ago, for every guy they
catch, there’s three or four to replace him.”</P>


Dye personally has been “frustrated” by the way things have evolved. College
athletes have increasingly gravitated toward relatively novice representatives
who provide “instant gratification,” over those with proven long-term
success.</P>


“I’ve had clients come in and tell me what they were offered,” he said.
“Sometimes it’s two or three years later, and they’ll say, ‘Yeah, I took the
money. But I ended up making a good decision [and hired somebody else].’ “</P>


Sounds like Bush.</P>


The Los Angeles Times Wednesday reported new details, linking Bush’s family
with a new sports marketing company, New Era Sports & Entertainment. Bush’s
stepfather, LaMar Griffin, reportedly even visited a reservation of the Sycuan
Indian tribe, with whom New Era attempted to forge a partnership.</P>


Bush didn’t sign with New Era. But it hasn’t seemed to affect his
marketability. He’s already a millionaire and he hasn’t even signed an NFL
contract yet.</P>


Meanwhile, USC squirms. If it’s found that Bush compromised his amateur
status and the Trojans used an ineligible player, they’re cooked. But the guilty
party will have been long gone.</P>