Reggie Bush’s NIL lawsuit takes stand on labor rights

Depending on your perspective, the current college football landscape in regard to paying players is either too radical or doesn’t go far enough. From my viewpoint, the conversation is on the goal line and needs a little shove. Thank God for former NFL tailback Reggie Bush’s reenactment of one of his most iconic plays.

Bush’s latest push is a lawsuit against his alma mater, USC, the PAC-12 and the NCAA, seeking compensation for use of his name, image and likeness during his time with the program. According to Bush’s suit, those entities made money off of him in perpetuity – during his time as a student-athlete, as a NFL player and beyond.

Bush’s attorneys also said in a news release that after Bush left USC to play in the NFL, the three entities continued to benefit financially from his reputation “without any acknowledgment of his contribution.”

“This case is not just about seeking justice for Reggie Bush,” Evan Selik, one of the attorneys representing Bush, said. “It’s about setting a precedent for the fair treatment of all college athletes. Our goal is to rectify this injustice and pave the way for a system where athletes are rightfully recognized, compensated and treated fairly for their contributions.”

Today’s players can make decisions that were denied to previous generations. UNLV starting quarterback Matt Sluka and running back Michael Allen announced that they would redshirt and wouldn’t play the rest of the year because of an NIL dispute.

“I committed to UNLV based on certain representations that were made to me, which were not upheld after I enrolled,” Sluka posted on X. “Despite discussions, it became clear that these commitments would not be fulfilled in the future. I wish my teammates the best of luck this season and hope for the continued success of the program.”

Sluka has the leverage, and further, the conviction, to make this very tough decision: Run me my money or I’m not running the offense. Still, if Sluka was promised something and didn’t receive it, that is an injustice similar to what Bush’s attorney described.

Injustice. Now we’re talking. Paying college players isn’t just a labor rights issue – it’s a civil rights issue.

In 2022, the National College Players Association filed a civil rights complaint with the U.S. Department of Education against Division I schools. “This multibillion college sports enterprise imposes discriminatory practices that disproportionately harms Black athletes, while predominantly White coaches and administrators make millions of dollars,” the association’s executive director Ramogi Huma said in a statement.

The notion of the “student-athlete” was crafted by the NCAA in the 1950s to avoid having to treat college athletes as employees. Ray Dennison, a lineman for Fort Lewis A&M, suffered a skull injury during a 1955 game and died. When his widow filed a death benefits claim, it was initially approved but denied on appeal. Why? Because Dennison was neither a “student” nor a “worker.”

What would the NCAA do to preserve the lie? Simple. Vilify Black athletes. 

O.J. Simpson, who was a running back at USC from 1967-68, was allowed to keep his Heisman Trophy after he was convicted of charges connected to an armed robbery in 2008. Bush was stripped of his trophy for 14 years, only reclaiming it after NIL made his excommunication an indisputable hypocrisy. USC treated him like a pariah, even as his highlights remained in our imaginations. Bush didn’t give the game a black eye, he gave it eye-black – swagger and distinction. The NCAA banned eye-black messages, too.

Michigan forward Chris Webber and his Fab Five brethren endured a similar fate at the university after he and four other players were found to have borrowed $616,000 from Michigan booster Ed Martin. Webber first said he had no financial relationship with Martin, but then said he had borrowed money from him. They were raked over the coals when the university initiated a lengthy separation from the group as it vacated wins and imposed sanctions on itself in 2002. Mary Sue Coleman, then-president at the university, called it a “day of great shame.” Webber responded to the university’s sanctions by saying: “It was just hurtful, because we gave everything to Michigan. They recruited us, asked us to come there, and we wanted to.”

The rhetoric about “impermissible benefits” never compelled me quite like Jalen Rose and Webber’s commentary from ESPN’s Fab Five documentary, where the two lamented the fact that they didn’t receive a penny from their jersey sales. Like Bush, the Fab Five were iconic, and the real crime was the inability to cash in on their celebrity.

When Cam Newton was a quarterback at Auburn — if you let opposing SEC fans tell it at the time — was a scammer. The truth is, like booster Ed Martin at Michigan, Cecil Newton, Cam Newton’s father, saw through the student-athlete lie. According to documents, Cecil Newton and former Mississippi State player Kenny Rogers sought $120,000 to $180,000 for the quarterback to sign with the Bulldogs out of junior college but didn’t ask any other school for money. The “Cecil Newton loophole,” which allowed Cam Newton to play during Auburn’s 2010 national championship became the stuff of legend (or the stuff of lying, depending on your perspective) and he was deemed eligible to play after initial uncertainty.

From my perspective, a different lie was at hand beyond the narrative of the student-athlete.

While Newton, the Fab Five and Bush were reviled, quarterback Johnny Manziel, who played at Texas A&M, was revered, even though his father had the same forward-thinking philosophy as Cecil Newton. Manziel won the Heisman Trophy as a freshman in 2012, which according to the Netflix documentary Untold: Johnny Football, brought in $37 million in media exposure. Texas A&M raised a record $740 million in donations in the fiscal year Manziel won the Heisman, which was $300 million more than it had ever raised.

“It’s the spring of 2014, December 2013,” Manziel said on an episode of Shannon Sharpe’s podcast Club Shay Shay. “I’m getting ready to make this decision on if I’m going to the NFL draft or if I’m going to stay … My dad went and had a meeting with Kevin Sumlin. And pretty much went to him man-to-man and was like, ‘We’ll take $3 million and we’ll stay for the next two years.’ ” The university turned them down and Manziel went on to the NFL draft.

The way I see it, Bush shouldn’t be the only player seeking reparations for lost NIL money.

Some folks see the NIL era as opening Pandora’s box, but the evil was already built into the language of not paying college athletes. Maybe it’s the three-letter abbreviation, NIL, for name, image and likeness, but I still see nil in the proposition of paying players because those funds are being paid by third parties, not the schools, the conferences or the NCAA.

It’s intellectual dishonesty at best and flat-out robbery at worst. 

Pandora’s box isn’t just a story about evil, however, but hope. How fitting that the story began with a basketball player at USC’s crosstown rival, UCLA. Forward Ed O’Bannon took on the NCAA and won in 2014 when a judge ruled that the NCAA couldn’t stop players from selling the rights to their name, image and likeness, making the way for the NCAA’s policy change in 2021.

Now, in tune with a familiar promotion, Bush has finally pulled up to the Heisman House. But that’s not enough. He wants the whole neighborhood, and I hope some of his famous brethren follow suit.