Reggie Bush, whose ban over recruiting violations ended last year, will not get his Heisman Trophy back, according to reports this week.
The NCAA, ESPN said, will not review past punishments despite recent changes that will allow athletes to profit from use of their names, images and likenesses.
An NCAA spokesperson acknowledged those changes, but also told ESPN that the organization’s rules “still do not permit pay-for-play type arrangements.”
Bush, a Spring Valley native who attended Helix High, in a statement earlier this month, had urged the NCAA to restore his college numbers.
“It is my strong belief that I won the Heisman trophy ‘solely’ due to my hard work and dedication on the football field and it is also my firm belief that my records should be reinstated,” Bush said, as reported by ESPN.
Bush helped the Trojans win 34 consecutive games and two national championships from 2003-05. He won the 2005 Heisman Trophy in the process.
He later forfeited the trophy, after the NCAA officially vacated the team’s accomplishments in the 2005 season.
In other Bush-related developments, a former assistant USC football coach settled his defamation lawsuit against the NCAA, a legal battle connected to the former Trojan.
Todd McNair reached a confidential settlement, attorneys announced, ending the long legal saga stemming from allegations that he was aware of improper benefits received by the running back and his family.
A Los Angeles Superior Court jury in 2018 rejected McNair’s claims, but a judge granted him a new trial.
Financial terms of the legal settlement were not divulged.
McNair, the running backs coach for the NFL Tampa Bay Buccaneers, returned to coaching in 2019 following a nine-year absence.
McNair was the Kansas City Chiefs’ running backs coach before being hired in 2004 by USC, where he spent six seasons working under then-coach Pete Carroll.
But his contract was not renewed after the NCAA alleged in a report that McNair knew about Bush’s relationship with two sports agents who were providing the player with benefits, according to the lawsuit.
McNair, who filed the suit a decade ago, alleged the NCAA cost him his job and derailed his career after he was wrongfully punished. He maintained that he was unaware of Bush’s relationship with the agents, and that the NCAA committed misconduct in its investigation.
The NCAA countered that one of the agents, Lloyd Lake, contradicted McNair.
City News Service contributed to this report.