USC's losses will get thicker with this update

<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD class=yspsctnhdln>Bush case break?
</TD></TR><TR><TD height=7><SPACER height="1" width="1" type="block"></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><STYLE type=text/css> td.yspwidearticlebody { font-size: 13.5px; }</STYLE><TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR><TD class=yspwidearticlebody> The NCAA appears to be on the verge of a major breakthrough in its investigation of Heisman Trophy-winning running back Reggie Bush.
Two sources have told Yahoo! Sports that Lloyd Lake, one of the financiers of failed marketing company New Era Sports & Entertainment, has agreed to meet with NCAA investigators and turn over financial records and other evidence that would tie Bush and his family to nearly $280,000 in extra benefits allegedly taken during Bush's days at USC. Lake – one of two New Era financiers who allegedly delivered cash payments and other benefits to Bush and his family – is preparing to file suit against Bush and his family later this month.
Sources said that Lake's meeting with the NCAA could include discussion of Bush's relationship with New Era Sports – from financial records and receipts to how and when payments were made – and information about other parties who might have had financial involvement with the running back and his family. Such revelations would likely allow the NCAA's slowed investigation to move forward.
<TABLE cellPadding=1 align=left border=0 vspace="5" hspace="10"><TBODY><TR><TD><TABLE class=ad_slug_table cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 border=0><TBODY><TR><TD align=middle>[SIZE=-2]ADVERTISEMENT[/SIZE]
<IFRAME marginWidth=0 marginHeight=0 src="http://ad.doubleclick.net/adi/N1841.Yahoo/B2291789.12;sz=300x250;dcopt=rcl;click=http://us.ard.yahoo.com/SIG=12j8mpkvs/M=600962.11530116.12046039.1806201/D=sports/S=97617837:LREC/_ylt=AiG_5_mIQNI95qgrY.W4XWyth9EF/Y=YAHOO/EXP=1192004474/A=4721482/R=0/*;ord=1191997274206689?" frameBorder=0 width=300 scrolling=no height=250 BORDERCOLOR="#000000"><SCRIPT language='JavaScript1.1' SRC="http://ad.doubleclick.net/adj/N1841.Yahoo/B2291789.12;abr=!ie;sz=300x250;dcopt=rcl;click=http://us.ard.yahoo.com/SIG=12j8mpkvs/M=600962.11530116.12046039.1806201/D=sports/S=97617837:LREC/_ylt=AiG_5_mIQNI95qgrY.W4XWyth9EF/Y=YAHOO/EXP=1192004474/A=4721482/R=1/*;ord=1191997274206689?"></SCRIPT><NOSCRIPT> </NOSCRIPT></IFRAME></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE><SCRIPT language=javascript>if(window.yzq_d==null)window.yzq_d=new Object();window.yzq_d['MpdnptGDJHI-']='&U=13bmk8kmh%2fN%3dMpdnptGDJHI-%2fC%3d600962.11530116.12046039.1806201%2fD%3dLREC%2fB%3d4721482';</SCRIPT><NOSCRIPT> </NOSCRIPT></TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>Yahoo! Sports has acquired confidential emails from officers of New Era Sports & Entertainment, soliciting marketing and memorabilia deals on the running back's behalf. The emails and other internal memorandums purport ties between Bush, his family and New Era officers Lake and Michael Michaels. Bush settled out of court with Michaels in April for a sum that sources placed between $200,000 and $300,000. The settlement included a confidentiality agreement that barred Michaels from speaking to the NCAA, sources said.
Lake and Bush sat before a mediator in June and attempted to hammer out a settlement, sources said, but that effort apparently was unsuccessful. Lake's legal representation declined to confirm that meeting and also refused to discuss the potential for their client to appear before the NCAA.
"We do not want to discuss the matter," Lake's attorney, Brian Watkins, said.
Calls to Bush's attorney, David Cornwell, were not immediately returned.
Cornwell said in January that he and his clients no longer would be taking part in the "media frenzy" surrounding the running back.
NCAA officials declined to comment on the matter but encouraged anyone with knowledge of the situation to come forward.
Taped conversations between Lake, Bush, Bush's stepfather LaMar Griffin and others starting in December 2005 now could be examined as evidence by the NCAA. Sources have told Yahoo! Sports that those tapes provide proof of a financial relationship between the New Era financiers and Bush's family during his days at USC. The tapes could pave the way for significant penalties for USC and ultimately could lead to Bush losing the Heisman Trophy he won in 2005 when he led USC to the national championship game against Texas.
The conversations also could prove Bush's family started taking money from Michaels and Lake during the 2004 season, when USC went undefeated and won the national championship in a rout of Oklahoma.
Pressure has been growing on the NCAA for months and came to a head recently when the organization struck Oklahoma with multiple penalties stemming from a scandal uncovered before the 2006 season. Oklahoma President David Boren recently praised his school's efforts to clean up its issues and compared it favorably with the lack of fact-finding in the USC case.
Two sources told Yahoo! Sports that attorneys for Lake and Bush have not spoken since the failed settlement attempt in June. However, according to four sources, Bush angered both Lake and Michaels by accusing them of extortion in a recent interview aired Sept. 13 on ESPN's "Outside The Lines."
In that interview, Bush said of the NCAA investigation and his family's alleged impropriety: "For me, I look at it as – and my family looks at it as – extortion. Because these were guys we'd known our whole lives … when I was a freshman in high school, they weren't asking for money. When I was getting older, and then all of the sudden my year with the possibility of me coming out, all this stuff comes out."
According to a source at ESPN, that segment aired despite a threat from Bush's camp that the running back would halt future cooperation with the network if the interview was not pulled.
Sources told Yahoo! Sports following the segment that Bush might have violated his confidentiality clause with Michaels by directing claims of extortion at the New Era financiers. The FBI briefly investigated claims of extortion from Bush's attorney, including interviewing several of Lake's family members and acquaintances before a federal grand jury. After the depositions, a federal source told Yahoo! Sports that the FBI would not be pursuing the extortion claims.
Bush's family allegedly received rent-free living for a year in a home in Spring Valley, Calif. Both Michaels and Lake have claimed the family owes approximately $50,000 in rent on the $757,000 home. Sources also detailed for Yahoo! Sports a litany of cash payments and other benefits allegedly given to the family. Such payments eventually are expected to be revealed during the course of Lake's lawsuit.
Bush, whose family had lived in an apartment before moving into the Spring Valley home, claimed his parents simply "got behind" on rent during his interview with "Outside The Lines."
"It was basically, you know, just my parents, you know, renting a house from a friend of ours, and they got behind on some rent, you know, a couple of months on some rent," Bush said on the segment. "And all of the sudden it's like the media blew up this whole thing – 'Oh, they were living in this house rent free' – which wasn't the case. We rented a house and just like any other family, you know, you get behind on bills. You don't have money; my family isn't rich. We didn't have a lot of money.
"So my parents struggled to pay bills here and there, one of those being rent. I think just like any normal average family, you struggle to pay bills sometimes, and that's all it was. And the media kind of blew it out to kind of make it seem like we were living in this nice gorgeous house – which I never lived there – living in this nice gorgeous house rent free, and it wasn't anything like that."
Watkins and Michaels' attorney, Jordan Cohen, told Yahoo! Sports the family never paid any rent and subsequently was evicted from the home in April 2006.
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BATON ROUGE, La. -- Louisiana State University has settled a lawsuit from one of two former instructors who said they were pressured to change football players' grades and hide academic misconduct several years ago.
The school continues to deny wrongdoing, and settled to avoid the expense of further litigation by Tiffany Terrell Mayne, a three-sentence news release from LSU said.
It did not give any details of the settlement.
It settled in December with the other instructor, Caroline Owen. She got $150,000 and letters of recommendation.
The two kinesiology instructors sued in 2002, saying they were pressured to change players' grades and hide their cheating during the 2000-01 school year to keep players eligible for the Peach Bowl.
After investigating the allegations, LSU admitted five secondary NCAA violations, transferred the former head of the Academic Center for Student Athletes and moved control of the center from the athletic department to the provost.
Under self-imposed penalties accepted by the NCAA, LSU lost two football scholarships for its 2005 signing class and forfeited four official visits that prospective football recruits could make during the 2003-04 recruiting season.
The university was never put on probation, which might have subjected it to the NCAA's "death penalty" -- a suspension of play -- because the school was on probation in men's basketball at the time of the football infractions.
Mayne claimed in her lawsuit that she gave failing grades to 10 football players in a fall 2000 kinesiology introductory course.
Those 10 football players got extra credit through a special post-semester study session designed to raise their grades and keep them eligible for the Peach Bowl in Atlanta. The Tigers defeated Georgia Tech in that game 28-14.
Owen said that when she told kinesiology department head Amelia Lee that she believed papers she had graded were plagiarized, she was told the papers were those of football players and that she "needed to keep the matter quiet and not discuss her findings with anyone else."
NCAA enforcement officials interviewed Owen and Mayne, both of whom said they got hate mail and death threats for reporting the alleged violations.

Whore,

I'm not sure what will become of this, but from my own personal experience of Lake - he went to Helix several years before Bush - is that he is a piece of garbage.

Not to say that the forfeits won't occur, but Lake is garbage. This is not pro-Reggie to get under your skin, I'm just telling u about Lake.

ramonscottsports said:

Whore,

I'm not sure what will become of this, but from my own personal experience of Lake - he went to Helix several years before Bush - is that he is a piece of garbage.

Not to say that the forfeits won't occur, but Lake is garbage. This is not pro-Reggie to get under your skin, I'm just telling u about Lake.

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Everyone knows this Mony but the fact is USC got caught with a smoking gun and the NCAA has turned a blind eye. Lake might be the scum of the earth but it doesn't change the fact that USC went un-punished when the Oklahomas of the world would've have gotten the death penalty for what happened.

And the entitled USC fan keeps churning as they lose to Stanford as 41 pt favs and are still in the top 10 and have BCS pundits saying they are still alive for a title shot. The special treatment for this non-special program and coach never ends.

They have no chance at a title, but if they win out they will play in the ROSE BOWL. Thats not special treatment, thats just what you get when you win the pac10.

CHOPTALK said:

They have no chance at a title, but if they win out they will play in the ROSE BOWL. Thats not special treatment, thats just what you get when you win the pac10.

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Not according to Bruce Feldman and the talking heads at ESPN. They have that "tough schedule" and ridiculous Sagarin rating of the Pac-10 boosting their BCS standing. It will be a moot point because they will lose again.

Everyone forgets very fast that had USC not lost to UCLA last yr it would have been Trojans vs Buckeyes rather than Gators vs Buckeyes based solely on the same premise in effect this yr - a bloated pre-season ranking and hardly a drop in the rankings after a brutal loss.

Dodo did you write this?

http://www.gump4heisman.com/my_weblog/2007/10/report-usc-to-m.html

REPORT: USC back to AP #2 after "solid" practice; Carroll makes nice with media

USC jumps five spots after Carroll claims he "didn't mean to" lose to Stanford

LOS ANGELES, Ca. (AP) –
It didn't take long for the pollsters to forgive the USC Trojans. Or that dreamy Pete Carroll.

In fact, USC’s fall from #2 only ended up lasting two days. Because, in the end - according to the AP voters - they had been punished long enough. And all it took was for Pete Carroll and USC to promise they had learned their lesson. Which, according to Pete Carroll and USC, they did.

Tuesday afternoon's press conference began when Carroll, who looked really cute, made remarks that he felt his team was practicing with intensity following last weekend's shocking loss to 41-point underdog Stanford. He described his team's efforts as "solid," winked at the media, and then asked pretty-please if he could have his #2 ranking back - since his boys had worked so hard all week.

And then he smiled. At me. (Sigh).

During the roughly 45-minute long press conference, Carroll addressed multiple criticisms of his Trojans. He was quick to not only acknowledge the mistakes he made in the Stanford loss, but to bat his eyelashes at multiple AP voters.

“Hello babe,” said Carroll, putting his arm around one media member. “Hey hey, my bad. My bad. I didn’t know it meant so much to you. If I had known, I never would have messed around with that silly old Stanford. It, it just happened.”
"I didn't mean to lose to the Cardinal," said Carroll. "Do you know how embarassing it is to lose to a team that basically is named after one bird? And not like one species, but like a specific individual. Like 'Oh, who you guys playing next week?' 'Uh, let's see... the San Francisco Bob.'"

As members of the media crossed their arms, shifted in their seats and rolled their eyes, Carroll – who is an absolute dream – appeared to not let it affect him. “Listen, listen,” said Carroll, as he rubbed Linda Cohn’s shoulders. “We’re going to be fine. It was just one little pass. One little pass. Are we going to let one little pass come between all that we’ve worked to build Linda? Are we? Whoa - and you have beautiful eyes by the way. You guys better watch out for her. And I better back off before I pull a Joe Namath.”

The press conference was interrupted multiple times as members of the media made emotional remarks either in support of or against Carroll, who’s eyelashes are like long magic angel hairs. The most frequent interruptions came from Lou Holtz, a former coach and ESPN commentator, who stopped the press conference multiple times to claim that he “thought he thaw a tweetybird.”

Still, in early going, things weren’t all easy on Carroll, whose hair could best be described as a wavy golden sun-filled land amidst a valley of curvy waterfalls and shaggy rainbows, where children are free to roam and dance and sing songs about smiley faces that grow on trees. “I mean, how can you expect me to buy this,” asked a teary-eyed Kirk Herbstreit. “You, you, I mean, you go out there and you don’t even care, and you just let this stupid – and it is, it’s just stupid; I mean this whole thing is just stupid; and, oh God, look at me… I mean, I can’t even talk straight right now because I think one thing, and then you go and do another thing and then I think this and you just…. It’s just – I mean, why do I let you do this to me? Why? When all you’re gonna do is let that Stanford Cardinal just whisk you away and… all of the sudden I… I just don’t know what to think.” While Herbstreit was forced to fan himself off with his hands and leave the room, others – such as Holtz – were quick to accept Carroll’s apology. “Well I’m thust gphlad you had the courageth thou admitdh thith to uth,” said Holtz. “Thath thwhat threally thicks thout tho mhe.”

And it didn't take long for Carroll to woo the rest of the present voters. As soon as various media members began to shy away from the coach’s apology, he got down from the podium, rolled up his sleeves, and walked between the rows of media members.

“It’s been five years. I don’t want to throw that away because of one little mistake. And neither do any of us. Who helps you out? Huh?” asked Carroll as he pointed to varying members of the press. “Stewie Scott, you know me. I make Sportscenter look like OwenWilsoncenter. Who else can give you OwenWilsoncenter? Nobody. You guys have to cover me. You guys have to love me.”

“And who else is out there? Les Miles? Les Miles doesn’t look like Owen Wilson,” said Carroll. “More like Mr. Wilson.”
“And what does that make Nick Saban, huh?” asked Carroll. “His little midget Dennis the Menace? With his little toy slingshot defense? Aw, how cute.”

“C’mon. I’m Hollywood baby, you guys need me,” said Carroll. “Pete Carroll is Hollywood. Pete Carroll is friends with Snoop Dogg. Who else is cool with Snoop Dogg? Bobby Bowden? You think Bobby Bowden is cool with Snoop Dogg? Bobby Bowden wasn’t even cool with Snoop Minnis.”

“Who else is Hollywood? Who? Rich Rodriguez?” said Carroll. “The only thing Hollywood about that guy is that his wife looks like Michael Keaton in Beetlejuice.”

And before long, Pete Carroll the master had proven to all that USC re-deserved their #2 ranking. Only minutes into his speech, one almost felt like interrupting him:

You had us at ‘Hello’ Pete. You had us at ‘Hello.’

sb

ITs going to be Cal and Ohio State this year

Railbird said:

ITs going to be Cal and Ohio State this year

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hahahahahaha, cal......

What do you expect from a USC alum. LOL! Actually, he didn't even graduate.

What do you expect from a USC dropout! He's no Cadillac.

Imagine if this was Darren McFadden instead of Bush. Arkansas would never see the light of day and would have their whole football program stripped.

whormoan said:

Imagine if this was Darren McFadden instead of Bush. Arkansas would never see the light of day and would have their whole football program stripped.

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Complete bullshit

Seriously get a fucking life.