Why Not?

Why did Reggie Bush’s parents sign-off on an ill-fated lease agreement?  

Why not?
Close your eyes and imagine you’re the parents of a “one percenter.”  

A record-setting athlete so gifted, his immense talent measured not in yards or touchdowns but on the “wow-factor” scale.  A young man handsome enough to model designer clothes whose glitter and glam will forever play second fiddle to his incandescent smile.  

And unlike so many extended families of college athletes, you don’t enter the checkout line at the local grocery with a pocket full of food stamps.  You’re not hurting for extra cash to put food on table, roof overhead.

Your family’s every hope and wish isn’t tied to the less than one-in-a-million odds of making it to The League.  

Besides, if the kid didn’t make it, he could take those looks on a transcontinental modeling career.  Or, if the twisted hands of fate blew out his knees and he never played another down, he could take his spoken eloquence into the broadcast booth (Jay Williams: you’re on speaker phone).  

And to top it off, insurance companies have turned your front lawn into a West Coast Krzyzewskiville; if he never played again, they’d pay you buy-your-own-island money just in case.

One problem:

The front, back and side lawns, plus all 3,000 square feet of roof over your head were paid for by a man who hoped to represent your son when his amateur days were done.

By signing the lease, moving in and cement-stamping  “The Griffins `05” in the driveway apron, Denise and Lamar Griffin, the parents of 2005 Heisman Trophy winner Reggie Bush may have broken the “extra benefits” law(s) of the NCAA.

And NCAA president Miles Brand, a man with all the compassion of Hannibal Lecter who found a way to run Bob Knight out of Bloomington when he ran the show at IU will find someone to pay for the mistakes.

Thing is, that person won’t be Reggie Bush.  And it certainly won’t be the Griffins.

But if the investigation proves that Bush’s parents were given a free ride, or even a break on market value, USC will pay.  If the violations made Bush an ineligible player, they’ll forfeit every game he played in last season, a Pac 10 championship and a weighty sum of the mythical “greatest team ever assembled” title.  

Mind you, this ruling could be handed down even if Bush is proven to have had no direct knowledge of the situation.   But to believe that a player as close to his family as Bush, whose stepfather was a key figure in post game, locker room celebrations could somehow never see, visit or question the validity of his parent’s new digs is a joke in and of itself.

The logical question would seem to be “why?”

Forget about impending talks with the NCAA infractions committee.  Why even take the risk of putting this kind of embarrassment on your child a year before he sets his great-great-grandchildren up for life with the kind of guaranteed money he’ll get as a sure-fire, top-five NFL draft pick?

Why not?

Do you think Chris Webber, Jalen Rose or the rest of Michigan’s fabled Fab Five care that their 1992 and 1993 Final Four runs were erased from the record books?  The hundreds of millions of dollars in their collective bank accounts offer a resounding “no.”

But their head coach, Steve Fisher, the man who oversaw the six-figure, pay-for-play “amateur” careers of those players is toiling away in the relative anonymity of a second chance.

At San Diego State.  Where basketball takes a distant third to surfing and fish tacos.

Do you think he cares?

As long as the inmates are running the asylum, Reggie Bush doesn’t have to care.  

Won’t even break an on-camera sweat talking about it.  

He’ll likely go first overall on April 29 and be running into an end zone near you this fall on his way to shedding every Sayers-Sanders-Faulk comparison and becoming the first Reggie Bush in NFL history.

Should his junior season in Troy become null and void, at least the weekly automatic deposit courtesy of Texans’ owner Bob McNair will keep his checks from bouncing.