Ties Between Bush, Parents, and House May Be Coincidental - Bush To Associated Press

Hold on Cal and Vince Young fans. USC may not be in danger of losing scholarships, and Vince Young may not be given the Heisman that currently rests somewhere in the home of Reggie Bush.

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Bush says Parents leased house being scrutinized by Pac-10
USC star says story has been blown out of proportion

Associated Press

LOS ANGELES — Former Southern California star Reggie Bush said there was nothing inappropriate about his family's living arrangement at a home owned by a man who reportedly sought to market him because they leased the house.

"It's kind of funny how this whole story is getting blown out of proportion," Bush said in a live ESPN interview Monday.


The Pac-10 said Sunday that it will investigate whether any NCAA rules were violated when Bush's family, including mother Denise Griffin, stepfather LaMar Griffin and brother Jovan Griffin lived in the Spring Valley, Calif., house while Bush was still playing for USC last season.

Bush declined to say who paid the rent.

The home was owned by Michael Michaels, who reportedly attempted to steer Bush toward signing with San Diego agent David Caravantes, and sought to handle Bush's marketing with a new firm he had founded, Yahoo.com reported Sunday.

NCAA rules prohibit student-athletes and their families from receiving extra benefits from agents or their representatives.

"When this is all said and done, everybody will see at the end of the day that we've done nothing, absolutely nothing wrong," said Bush, the 2005 Heisman Trophy winner.

Bush chose to turn pro after his junior season with USC and is expected to be the No. 1 pick in Saturday's NFL draft. He eventually signed with a different agent and marketing firm; his agent, Joel Segal, and Mike Ornstein, who handles marketing, did not immediately return telephone messages left Monday by The Associated Press.

Yahoo reported that the family moved out last weekend after questions over its ownership arose. Bush suggested that the timing of the move was coincidental.

"That's the funny thing," he said. "We've been looking for a house for two to three months. Now that I'm in the position of buying my parents a house, we've even made a bid on another house, but it ended up being too steep for my pocket."

Pac-10 commissioner Tom Hansen said Monday that a Pac-10 investigation could start soon, but gave no specific time frame. USC could forfeit its 2005 Pac-10 football title if Bush is ruled ineligible, he said.

"I'm not a rules expert, but I think one of the available penalties would be forfeiture of games if you compete while ineligible," Hansen said at the Bowl Championship Series meetings in Phoenix. "I want to caution that that's a long way from where we are now. And I think all of us have seen that so often there are allegations made and when you get to the heart of the matter there' s nothing there."

Any violation could also put Bush in a precarious position with the organization that awards the Heisman Trophy; the award ballot states that the winner must be in compliance with NCAA rules. Heisman officials will wait until the Pac-10 investigation is complete before deciding if any action needs to be taken, said Heisman Trophy Trust spokesman Tim Henning.

The Trojans went 12-1 last season, losing to Texas in the national championship game at the Rose Bowl. USC coach Pete Carroll was on the road recruiting Monday and was unavailable for comment.

The two-story house sits on a corner on a steep hill in an unincorporated area outside San Diego. The back yard is bare dirt and the pavement of the driveway apron is inscribed with the words "The Griffins '05.'"

San Diego County records show the 3,002-square-foot home has an assessed value of $339,394, including $99,394 for the land. State records showed construction was completed in early 2005 and Michaels purchased it for more than $757,000 in late March.

In a statement to the AP on Monday, William David Cornwell Sr., attorney for Bush and his mother and stepfather, said the tailback had no connection to the house.

"Reggie Bush was a full-time student at the University of Southern California and never lived in the house," Cornwell said. "As is the case with most 20-year-old college students, Reggie was not aware of personal or financial arrangements relating to his parents or their house. Mr. and Mrs. Griffin now realize that, given Reggie's profile, their personal decisions can reflect on their son."

Bush did not answer a question about his relationship with Michaels.

"There will be a later time for details," he said. "As of right now, it's still early and we don't want to get into all that."

In Crack-Induced Haze, ESPN's Michael Smith Writes That The Texans Should Take Mario Williams Over Reggie Bush

I love ESPN's Michael Smith. At Super Bowl XL in Detroit I asked him who his favorite team was "No one. None of 'em" was his quick witted response. I also enjoy his straight on conversational take on the NFL's Minority Hiring Problem.

But I don't agree with his latest column, which goes like this:

"Let me begin by assuring you that, to my knowledge, I never have suffered a head injury, not even a minor one. I've never used/abused recreational or prescription drugs. And it has been well over a week since I last consumed any alcohol. Also rest assured that when I wrote the following, I did so with a straight face.

With the first pick of the 2006 NFL draft, the Houston Texans should not select running back Reggie Bush of Southern California. And my reason has nothing to do with the recent report that his family allegedly accepted extra benefits during Bush's junior season.

And sorry, Houstonians, this isn't another plea for the Texans to pass over Bush in favor of University of Texas quarterback (and hometown hero) Vince Young.

They shouldn't trade down, either, or they might miss out on the player they should take. Mario Williams, the North Carolina State defensive end, should be the Texans' pick.

Choosing Williams over Bush is the smart choice if not the most popular. It isn't that Williams is the better player; a college scouting director whom I swear by told me that Bush is the best player he's ever evaluated, that Bush received a rating one point below perfect on his scale, while Williams graded out one point behind Bush. So I believe the Texans are in fact torn between Bush and Williams, whom they have rated equally atop their draft board."

The statistic that only four Super Bowl winners had running backs drafted in the first round is misleading. Yes, offense sells tickets and defense wins championships, but the vast majority of Super Bowl winners have had record-setting defenses made up of a collection of mid-first round and mostly-late round draft choices. Plus, the stat leads the uninformed and unsophistocated person to assume that every Super Bowl winner was able to draft a running back with the first pick in the first round.

No.

I'm going to go out on a limb and say this: Mario Williams will never be the difference maker that Reggie Williams can be because a team can game plan to go away from him. They cvan use his speed against him. And as long as there are other weaknesses on the Texans defense, one player will not make the difference.

But a defense that keys on Reggie Bush can be hurt by play-action. Nuff said. That defense will then have the chore of just trying to catch lightining in a bottle. What Smith and others forget is this: speed kills.

In this election, I vote for Bush.

Maryland TE Vernon Davis - A Video Look Before the NFL Draft

Vernon Davis, Maryland's tight end and one of the top picks in the NFL Draft is causing many GM's to change who's near the top of their leader boards.

At 6'3 263 pounds and posting a blazzing 4.38 time in the 40-yard dash, Davis is not only an even better athlete than last year's TE pick Matt Jones, who went to Jacksonville, but unlike Jones played at that position in college, rather than being converted to it.

Several teams can benefit from Davis' right away: the Titans, 49ers, Packers, and Raiders for starters. It's not likely he's last beyond the 4th pick.

Here's a video of Vernon Davis at work:

Reggie Bush's Parents Abruptly Move From Home - Yahoo! Sports Robinson Reports House May Have Been Purchased By Bush's Agent

This will not impact his Draft position, but it may harm his level of expenses. Nice work by Charles Robinson of Yahoo Sports

Yahoo! Sports report: Reggie Bush's family home
By Charles Robinson, Yahoo! Sports
April 23, 2006


SPRING VALLEY, Calif. – In this sprawling hilltop community with a breathtaking view of Sweetwater Lake, it was no secret who lived in the 3,000-square-foot house at the corner of Apple Street and Luther Avenue.

That home, residents would tell you, was where Reggie Bush's family lived.

That is, until this weekend, when the family abruptly packed up and vacated the residence – less than 24 hours after Yahoo! Sports approached Bush's mother about information linking the property to Michael Michaels, a man who is alleged to have tried to play a role in steering Bush toward an agent and who also has ties to a sports marketing company.

Days before Bush is expected to be the No. 1 pick in the NFL draft, unanswered questions about the residence and how his mother, stepfather and brother came to live in it within the last year have prompted the University of Southern California to refer the matter to the Pacific-10 Conference for an investigation.

NCAA statutes prohibit student-athletes or their families from receiving extra benefits from professional sports agents, marketing companies or their representatives. A breach of these statutes could result in an athlete being ruled ineligible, and games in which they played could be forfeited.

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USC finished 12-1 last season, its 35-game winning streak and national championship bid both ending with a loss in the Rose Bowl to Texas. Bush, a junior running back, won the Heisman Trophy and elected to skip his senior season and turn pro in January.

In response to reporters' questions about the matter late last week, USC athletic department officials said they would look into it.

"Rather than jumping to conclusions, we need to determine the facts before commenting on this report," Trojans athletic director Mike Garrett said in a statement released by the school on Friday. "We have asked the Pac-10 to look into this."

State records show the Apple Street home was built in late 2004 and early 2005, then purchased by Michaels on March 29, 2005 for $757,500. Around that time, neighbors say Bush's family moved in. Whether they had visited the house while it was being built is unknown, but there is an inscription in one of the cement slabs in the driveway reading "The Griffins '05."

Michaels is the only person who has been listed on the deed to the home.

Bush's mother, Denise Griffin, was approached in the driveway of the house on Thursday, but declined to comment.

"I have absolutely nothing to say," Griffin said when asked about ownership of the property, which is where Bush's mother, stepfather LaMar and brother Jovan lived during USC's 2005 season.

Before moving to the house on Apple Lane, Bush's family was listed as living in an apartment elsewhere in Spring Valley, a community located about 13 miles east of San Diego.

At some point after Bush's family moved into the residence, Michaels and an associate named Lloyd Lake are said to have contacted San Diego-based sports agent David Caravantes and offered to facilitate Bush's recruitment. A source with intimate knowledge of the meeting said it took place during the 2005 college football season and that Michaels was looking for a local agent to handle the contract negotiations for players he intended to sign to his marketing firm.

Michaels and Lake told Caravantes they were planning to start a sports marketing agency with Bush as their anchor client. It was also during this meeting that Michaels and Lake mentioned the potential name of the agency: New Era Sports & Entertainment.

The pitch to Caravantes was said to have been simple: He would be Bush's agent and Michaels' marketing creation would handle the promotion of the USC star. At some point after pitching this idea, Michaels informed Caravantes that Bush's family was living in a home Michaels owned. Caravantes isn't believed to have met with Bush and was never considered to be in the mix before the USC star hired Reebok adviser Mike Ornstein and agent Joel Segal of Worldwide Football Inc. as his representatives.

Repeated attempts to reach Segal and Bush were unsuccessful.

While it's unclear what official role Michaels played in New Era Sports, indications are that the company barely got off the ground – if at all. According to corporation filings in California, paperwork for New Era Sports & Entertainment was drawn up on Nov. 23, 2005, and records list the business address in Los Angeles under an attorney named Phillip M. Smith Jr.

Contacted late last week, Smith Jr. refused to talk about New Era Sports – even declining to give public details such as a phone number for the company, where the New Era offices were located or who was serving as the company's current president or manager.

Asked why he wouldn't provide such information, Smith ended the brief telephone conversation, saying, "That's really not an issue that I want to deal with." He has failed to return multiple follow-up messages left at his office.

Further attempts to identify New Era produced a single web page with a company logo (http://newerasports.tv/) that contains no active links to indicate where New Era is located, what services are provided or how the company could be contacted. Searches also produced the internet blogs of three self-proclaimed employees of New Era Sports. One such blog included the company logo of New Era and pictures of several NFL players. That blog was taken down shortly after Yahoo! Sports obtained a hard-copy of the page.

Contacted about his alleged meeting with Michaels, Caravantes declined to comment.

Michaels – who is a member of the Sycuan Indian Tribe and works as a business development officer for the tribe's development corporation – failed to return multiple phone calls and was unavailable when Yahoo! Sports visited his home on three occasions this weekend.

The Sycuan tribe, which owns a casino and resort and is engaged in a number of business enterprises in the San Diego area, denied any knowledge of Michaels' relationship with the Bush family.

"The tribe is not aware of his involvement," said spokesman Adam Day, who had been approved to speak for the Sycuan's tribal government. "Any involvement that he has in this situation is his personal involvement. It has no connection or correlation to the tribe, its businesses or Mike's employment by the tribal development corporation.

"What tribal members do on their own time is their own business. It's not the business of the tribe."

Back at the house on Apple Street on Saturday afternoon, the moving trucks had come and gone. A flier offering cleaning services for movers was hung on the front door, and all the shades had been drawn shut. Through a garage window, only a few empty cardboard boxes and straggling trinkets were visible.

Across the street, neighbor Grant Sitton could only shrug.

"I don't know, I guess it didn't work out," Sitton said. "Oh well. They have a big payday coming next week anyway."

Charles Robinson is the national NFL writer for Yahoo! Sports. Send him a question or comment for potential use in a future column or webcast.

Fired CIA Operative Mary McCarthy Was A Democratic Supporter (Yeah!)

Just One Minute Blog has a great expose on the contributions of fired CIA operative Mary McCarthy

Fired CIA Operative Mary McCarthy Was A Democratic Supporter (Yeah!)

Just One Minute Blog has a great expose on the contributions of fired CIA operative Mary McCarthy

Letterman's Top Ten Bush Moments - He Forgot The China Press Conference

I must open by stating that I do feel sorry for President Bush in that he's only human and can't be enjoying the constant stream of negative information and views on his presidency. That written, we all do funny things, and in America, the president is not immune from coverage of his more comedic moments, especially as he presents them for us.

David Letterman presents the "Top Ten" Moments of President George W. Bush. The Letterman video is below. But Letterman totally forgot the one time President Bush was holding a press conference and China and tried to litterally escape the media via a door that didn't open for him!

That video's below this one and both are from You Tube:



Here's the now famous China Press Conference Video: