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Get Scouted Scouting CareersNCAA Determines Bush Ineligible; USC Hit with Tough Sanctions
The mystery behind the alleged gifts from professional agents to former Heisman Trophy winner from the University of Southern California, Reggie Bush, is finally over according to the NCAA. The nation’s largest college athletic governing body has announced its findings and the consequences placed on the university.
A three-year investigation by the NCAA Committee on Infractions, which covered a four-year period, has found the violations severe enough to penalize the Pac-10 powerhouse football program by eliminating future post season play as well as scholarships the next three years.
While Bush continues to trumpet his innocence, the NCAA concluded that Bush, now a star running back for Super Bowl Champion New Orleans Saints, received extraordinary benefits from agents attempting to capitalize on Bush’s promising professional career. The investigation itself was triggered by one of the agent’s public complaints that Bush failed to abide by their 2004 signed agreement which was in direct violation of NCAA rules. Once Bush signed a contract with a professional agent, he was ineligible to play athletics at USC.
Also named in the investigation, and penalized, are the USC men’s basketball and women’s tennis teams, although a majority of the infractions found stemmed from Reggie Bush’s involvement with professional agents during his time while on scholarship at the school.
Quoting the NCAA, “the penalties include:
• Four years of probation
• A two-year football postseason ban
• Vacation of regular-season and postseason wins for all three sports
• Scholarship reductions in football (to 15 initial grants and 75 total grants for each of the 2011-12, 2012-13 and 2013-14 academic years, which represents a decrease of 10 scholarships for each of the three seasons)
• Scholarship reductions in men’s basketball (from 13 to 12 for the 2009-10 and 2010-11 academic years)
• Recruiting restrictions for men’s basketball
The institution also must pay a $5,000 penalty and forfeit revenue from the 2008 NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Championship.
Also imposed are limitations for the access granted to boosters and non-university personnel to team charters, sidelines, practices, locker rooms and camps for men’s basketball and football. The university must also disassociate itself from three boosters, including the former football and men’s basketball student-athletes involved in this case.
As a part of this disassociation, the university will not be able to accept financial contributions or other assistance for the athletics department from these individuals or provide them with any benefit and privileges.
In addition, the assistant football coach received a one-year show-cause penalty, which prohibits him from engaging in any recruiting activity with prospective student-athletes.
The violations span almost four years, primarily involving agent and amateurism issues for a former football student-athlete and a former men’s basketball student-athlete. The committee noted that the violations in this case strike at the heart of the NCAA amateurism principal, which states that intercollegiate athletics should be motivated primarily by education and its benefits.”
National Scouting Report is dedicated to finding scholarship opportunities for athletes who possess the talent, desire, and motivation to compete at the collegiate level. We’ve helped connect thousands of athletes with their perfect college.