While looking for a source to respond to an e-mail I sent regarding another story for The Famuan, my cousin sent me a message titled, “Clips of Reggie Bush from High School.”
Not only did the film leave me in complete awe, I watched it so many times this commentary was turned in four hours after my deadline.
Finally, a Bush I can be proud to support.
Since the beginning of the football season, five of my football-playing friends and myself have attempted to outdo each other in terms of who could have the biggest man-crush on Bush. In fact, a friend of mine loves Reggie Bush so much I spent half the Thanksgiving weekend playfully questioning his sexuality.
To quote one of them, “Anyone who has watched what Bush has done this season understands the race is already over. The only intrigue left is what poppin’ nightclub Matt Leinart and Bush will go to after the ceremony and how many of their celebrity friends will show up.”
The male-crushes aside, Bush is fourth in the country in rushing with 127 yards a game. Forget the fact that no one in the top 25 in rushing has less than Bush’s 163 rushes. Oh yeah, and Bush leads the country in all-purpose yards with 2338. That’s 212.5 yards per game, no one else in Division I-A is within 20 yards per game of him.
For his highlight-filled career, Bush is averaging 162.1 yards per game through 37 games.
The University of Texas’ Vince Young is a great quarterback and would usually be deserving of his place in Heisman history, but he should try again next year.
True, Bush’s Trojan teammate Matt Leinart is having a season that is better than his Heisman winning season last year.
It’s also true that Leinart wasn’t voted the most valuable player of the Trojans last year, that honor went to Bush.
The Heisman, unlike other college awards is not given to the most outstanding player, but to more of a combination of the most outstanding and spectacular player in America.
Desmond Howard in 1991, Charles Woodson in 1997 and Eric Crouch in 2001 are a short laundry list of Heisman winners who were not necessarily the best player in America.
Heisman moments come from the one, or in Bush’s case half-dozen, plays that have made the eventual winner of the award indelible in the eyes of Heisman voters.
Bush has already made me a believer of his Heisman candidacy, go to http://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/29/sports/ncaafootball/30cnd-reggie.html? and see for yourself.
Will Brown is a senior newspaper journalism student from Rockledge, Fla. He can be reached at wwbrown19@yahoo.com