Reggie Bush gets Heisman Trophy back 14 years after forfeiting

Reggie Bush has his 2005 Heisman Trophy again, because the Heisman Belief introduced Wednesday the formal “reinstatement” of the trophy to Bush amid what it calls “huge modifications within the faculty soccer panorama.”

The Heisman Belief’s choice comes after Bush forfeited his Heisman Trophy in 2010 within the wake of great NCAA sanctions for USC, which included Bush receiving improper advantages throughout a Trojans profession that spanned from 2003 to 2005.

As a part of the choice Wednesday, the Heisman Belief is returning the Heisman Trophy to Bush and a reproduction to USC. Bush will once more be invited to all future Heisman Trophy ceremonies, starting within the 2024 season.

“Personally, I am thrilled to reunite with my fellow Heisman winners and be part of the storied legacy of the Heisman Trophy, and I am honored to return to the Heisman household,” Bush stated in an announcement to ESPN. “I additionally look ahead to working along with the Heisman Belief to advance the values and mission of the group.”

Bush obtained his Heisman Trophy on the finish of a beforehand scheduled summit assembly of the Belief on Wednesday morning outdoors Jacksonville, Florida. Tim Henning, affiliate director of the Heisman Belief, described a “celebratory ambiance” to ESPN’s Coley Harvey, as about 15 Heisman winners had been in attendance on the assembly.

“The opposite winners had been all very excited to see him,” Henning stated.

The choice to reinstate the Heisman Trophy was primarily based on a “deliberative course of” by the Heisman Belief to observe a sea change in faculty athletics in recent times. The Belief cited “elementary modifications in faculty athletics” wherein guidelines which have allowed “pupil athlete compensation” to grow to be “an accepted follow and seems right here to remain.”

“We’re thrilled to welcome Reggie Bush again to the Heisman household in recognition of his collegiate accomplishments,” Michael Comerford, president of The Heisman Trophy Belief, stated in an announcement. “We thought of the big modifications in faculty athletics during the last a number of years in deciding that now could be the fitting time to reinstate the trophy for Reggie. We’re so glad to welcome him again.”

As guidelines permitting athletes to be compensated for his or her identify, picture and likeness had been enacted in 2021, Bush started lobbying for his trophy to be returned. He launched an announcement in July 2021 that included criticism of the Heisman Belief, together with Comerford not returning Bush’s calls.

There had been a flurry of current help from Heisman winners for Bush to get the trophy again. Probably the most public got here from former Texas A&M star Johnny Manziel, who stated earlier this yr that he would skip the Heisman Trophy ceremony till Bush’s trophy was returned. Each USC’s Matt Leinart, Bush’s former teammate, and Notre Dame’s Tim Brown are Heisman winners who’ve been outspoken publicly about Bush’s trophy being returned.

Manziel reacted to Wednesday’s information on social media, thanking the Heisman Belief for “doing what’s proper and welcoming a storied member of our historical past again into the fold.”

Thanks to the @HeismanTrophy for doing what’s proper and welcoming a storied member of our historical past again into the fold. There have been many voices all through this course of that stood on the desk for Reggie merely due to the type of human being he’s. I look ahead to being on…

— Johnny Manziel (@JManziel2) April 24, 2024

In its decision-making, the Heisman Belief famous the 2021 Supreme Court docket choice in opposition to the NCAA within the Alston case, which the Belief stated “questioned the legality of the NCAA’s amateurism mannequin and opened the door to pupil athlete compensation.”

“Recognizing that the compensation of pupil athletes is an accepted follow and seems right here to remain, these elementary modifications in faculty athletics led the Belief to resolve that now could be the fitting time to return the Trophy to Bush, who unquestionably was essentially the most excellent faculty soccer participant of 2005,” the Heisman Trophy Belief stated.

USC now formally has eight Heisman Trophies, giving it essentially the most of any faculty within the nation forward of the seven every at Ohio State, Oklahoma and Notre Dame.

“I’m so glad for Reggie and the complete Trojan Household,” USC president Carol Folt stated in an announcement. “He gained our hearts throughout his illustrious profession and deserved to have his well-earned honor restored. We’re trying ahead to celebrating with him and his household and are proud we had been capable of stand with him as an advocate.”

Bush had forfeited the trophy in September 2010, marking the primary time faculty soccer’s high award was returned by a recipient. Months earlier, in July, USC gave again its duplicate of Bush’s trophy in one of many early actions of former athletic director Pat Haden’s tenure.

USC’s sanctions from that investigation included the Bowl Championship Sequence vacating the 2004 nationwide title, the primary time a significant faculty soccer champion had been stripped of a championship. The NCAA stripped USC of victories in 14 video games Bush performed, together with that BCS title blowout victory over Oklahoma after the 2004 season. (Bush filed a defamation lawsuit in opposition to the NCAA in August 2023.)

USC athletic director Jen Cohen referred to as the Heisman return “a momentous day for Reggie Bush and the complete USC neighborhood.”

Bush’s play on the sector at USC made him one in every of this century’s most transcendent faculty athletes. He averaged 8.5 yards per contact from scrimmage over his profession, together with speeding for 1,740 yards and eight.7 yards per stick with it 200 carries in 2005.

He accounted for 42 profession touchdowns over three seasons — 25 speeding, 13 receiving and 4 on particular groups returns. Bush was chosen No. 2 total within the 2006 NFL draft, and just one tailback has been picked that prime within the draft since: Saquon Barkley in 2018.

“What a historic day!” USC coach Lincoln Riley stated in an announcement. “Reggie’s reintroduction to the Heisman Household is a particular second for each person who has been related to USC soccer. We’re thrilled that Reggie’s athletic accomplishments as one of many biggest to ever play the sport can formally be acknowledged. For a very long time, the Heisman and USC have been synonymous and with the ability to acknowledge all eight of our winners is extraordinary.”

Bush was so dominant in 2005, accounting for two,890 all-purpose yards, that his 784 first-place votes are the fifth most in Heisman Trophy historical past.

Almost twenty years after that peerless season, Bush once more has his Heisman Trophy.