Give Reggie Bush His Heisman Back
The NCAA can never fully atone for the theft of college athletes’ labor. But it should try.
College sports changed forever this week. Giving in to intense pressure from state lawmakers, the NCAA freed student athletes to profit off of their own name, image, and likeness for the first time. The next step in the NCAA’s forced evolution should be to restore the reputation of athletes whom the organization has demonized for capitalizing on their own fame.
Like the people with marijuana convictions who want their records expunged as states legalize the drug, athletes whom NCAA officials punished under the old, discredited rules deserve clemency now. “I never cheated this game,” Reggie Bush, the former University of Southern California Thursday. “That was what they wanted you to believe about me.”
