Bozo_bus;1297591; said:
Your parsing is compulsive...
You are trending away from responding to the specific issue and towards the crutch of "umm, well, cheaters!"
This is not about one's opinion of whether Reggie took money, but about the evidentiary significance of the agreement. You say it is an admission of guilt, but without knowing what it says we can only conclude that it may be evidence of guilt.
Now, maybe Reggie's lawyers wrote up an agreement saying "Here is the $300k repayment for money you gave us while Reggie was in school." Or maybe it is "Here is $300k repayment for all debts owed as of the date of this agreement," which merely admits that money was owed (if that) and does not admit when the debt was incurred.
ALL of Lake's and Michael's claims cover when Bush was a student at USC. Trojan capacity to distort reality includes time and space. The car, the rent, EVERYTHING was while he was a Trojan. This is not in dispute. The settlement filed by the Bush team in their motion for private arbitration is heavily redacted. There was a lot the Bush team did not want public. It admits claimed payments were made and argues that the Michaels settlement repaid them. There were no claims by either Lake or Michaels for payments after the Heisman Awards Ceremony, when the Ornstein funding became known to them. The unwillingness/inability of Trojans to acknowledge reality is stunning. The now-admitted payments were made while he was a player for the Trojans. That makes him an ineligible player. That means the Trojans won games in both 2004 and 2005 using an ineligible player. The USC FAMILY can ignore that and hope to skate as it has throughout, or can do the right thing. Your vote is clear and near-unanimous in the USC FAMILY, to its disgrace.
YOU claimed that the settlement admits guilt, but you've provided no information about what the settlement says. Regardless of what Michael Michaels has said, the settlement doesn't admit anything other than what it says.
It's the difference between refusing a breathalyzer test and telling the officer you were driving under the influence. The former is strong evidence of guilt. The latter is an admission of guilt.
The analogy is better that the driver admitted to failing the breathalyzer test 2 miles back with another policeman. Lake's claims are the same as Michaels'. Both cover Bush exclusively as a Trojan.
Not if the settlement makes no reference as to when the debts were incurred. Reggie could take whatever he wants after he left USC, so that he paid a debt does not legally admit that the debt was incurred when you want it to be.
Am I saying that Reggie didn't take money or that he only took money afterwards? No, absolutely not. You are simply confusing the ultimate issue of guilt with the specific issue of what the settlement legally means.
gain, name one school that would voluntarily forfeit a BCS title out of a sense of integrity, or concede the point and save your credibility.
A chief compliance officer at a major school told me the NCAA is a self-reporting, self-disciplinary organization first. It depends on its members to act with integrity. Oklahoma self-reported and self imposed sanctions on its last snafu with the rules. It happens all the time. USC is the first and only school to have won the BCS title illegitimately, so your asking for other examples is silly. Self-imposed sanctions is the rule rather than the exception. My credibility is not the issue here. The facts speak for themselves. Reggie Bush is the highest paid athlete in amateur sports history and the USC FAMILY wants to treat it as if it never happened -- so it can preserve its bragging rights and ill-won NC. Using ineligible players is cheating. USC cheated. Justice requires forfeitures no matter who knew what. Your unwillingness to accept reality does not change reality. Trojans do not accept this either. They exist in a constant state of delusion and denial. Your astonishing arguments here illustrate the lengths to which they will go in propping up their inflated and fragile egos.
"err, umm, USC cheated!" I asked you to name one institution that would self-impose a forfeited football NC. You mention Oklahoma. Oklahoma didn't self-forfeit a single game, much less a NC. Here are Oklahoma's self-imposed penalties:
- Involved athletes booted from the team
- Those scholarships were not used for that year
- Would have disassociated the auto dealership except that it changed ownership
- One less football coach could recruit off-campus during Fall 2007
Wow, they really brought the hammer down on themselves. So again, instead of naming an institution that didn't even forfeit a single game, please name an institution that would forfeit a BCS title.
Yeah, Mike Williams used that same logic to bone himself out of college eligibility by following Maurice Clarett and the judge who said that the NFL's three-year rule was illegal.
How is that relevant to taking hundreds of thousands of dollars and remaining eligible? It is not. He admits to the payments now, it is public record. You want SC to skate, we got that. You want to use ineligible marquee players without consequence.
"Err, umm, USC Cheated!" Completely non-responsive answer. Let me remind you of the topic:
Me: I think there is an open question as to whether the arbitration agreement includes Lake
You: No, the trial judge disagrees with you
Me: The trial judge said the NFL's 3-year rule was illegal, but that was overruled
You: Err, umm, USC cheated!
Only if the BCS falls within the reach of the NCAA. It may or may not.
The only function of the BCS is to arrange Bowls, notably the NC game. No one foresaw there would be a cheater in the group. They will address it now that USC has compelled that the Trojan Rule be created to address cheaters. You must be proud.
So is it your position that the BCS does not award a championship?
Umm, no. The BCS has rules and bylaws, and is also governed by US law, including contract law.
Umm, yes. Those rules and by-laws were what they wanted and are subject to additions as the membership sees fit. Contract law does not enable cheating either. No provision addressing the cheating in this case would violate US law.
If you really believe that bylaws can be retroactively changed, then there is really nothing more to say other than to ask you why there are even bylaws to begin with.
Or sue.
Sue all you want. Further marginalize yourselves. Make USC known globally for its commitment to cheating to win.
"Err, umm, USC cheated!"
But for institutional penalties, there is a good chance that the net begins at the point that the NCAA determines that USC should have known, not necessarily when the individual player began breaking NCAA rules.
Dream on. The NCAA has said explicitly that the offenses begin when the meeting prompted by the Bush family was held because it resulted in inappropriate benefits. That was October of 2004.
Link?
The evidence of Ornstein providing benefits is much less established than Michaels/Lake providing benefits. You can't use the Lake money and the Ornstein connection. You need Orenstein money and Orenstein connection, or Lake money and Lake connection.
The Ornstein evidence has not yet been introduced into a courtroom proceeding. The Lake suit claims that when the Bushes took benefits from Ornstein, that violated their contract of exclusivity. This breech of contract is explicit in the suit. Yahoo! has documented evidence of some of the Ornstein benefits, but the main payments are supported by testimony only, so far as has been made public. My reporting of all this does not confuse these two marketing groups, but the Lake suit draws Ornstein into it. Also, Yahoo! brought Ornstein into the discussion when it first published its Bush report of NCAA violations two + years ago. It was Yahoo! that reported the $1500/week Ornstein payments to the Bushes. The Lake./Michaels-Ornstein connection is not of MY making.
Again, the allegation is (as I said) far from established. And the reason Lake claims that the Orenstein benefits matter to his contract with Bush is because he can't admit that it was an agency contract without getting whacked by California law.
And again, institutional knowledge is absolutely a consideration when it comes to institutional penalties.
Boosters ARE institutional. Whatever a booster does is the same as the university doing. The NCAA is absolutely clear on this point. The prudence of making an ex-con sports agent/marketer a bona fide booster wholly escapes me. Does Heritage Hall hand out daily stupid pills?
Lake is not a booster. Michaels is not a booster. The Orenstein evidence is weak.
Beat the Sun Devils!
Yup--just win, baby. That is all that matters, right?
Of course not. Since we lost to Oregon State, we need some style points and some help around the country.
Huh? I said that the statute of limitations is irrelevant in this case.
You also said it was "heading for resolution one way or the other" and this was the optimism being questioned -- as my full response makes clear: the Bush team is not invested in any resolution whatsoever that involves public disclosure. Delays will continue to mar the proceedings.
The NCAA's case is headed for a resolution one way or the other. Either USC will be be found to have broken rules and punished OR it will be found that there is no evidence of rulebreaking and the school will not be punished
