When Reggie Bush’s advisers either told him or couldn’t get him to settle the claim by Lloyd Lake and Michael Michaels, for close to what was asked, the cycle that led to the NCAA punishment of USC was set in motion.

Lake and Michaels were looking for compensation, after Bush and his family received money and benefits from them while Reggie was in school. In exchange they were to represent Bush as a pro but he stiffed them. He signed with someone else.

There is more than speculation that those two men were the sources for the very first story about this scandal, published in Yahoo! Sports a few years ago.

Next, the civil lawsuits were filed against Bush and his family by the two men. Bush decided to go to the District Attorney to claim that Lake and Michaels were engaging in extortion by seeking return of money they weren’t owed.

An investigation commenced into those charges which amounted to nothing. But on the heels of that criminal allegation, the NCAA began its slow crawl towards today’s announced sanctions against the university.

Bush settled relatively quickly with Michaels but continued to refuse to do the same with Lake. Mere weeks ago, Bush and Lake came to a confidential settlement on the eve of him having to testify under oath about the facts of the case.

In the meantime, the university toughed it out, got in trouble on the basketball side of the athletics department and purged Tim Floyd from his position as coach. Floyd, by the way, was not named as a culprit in the report issued today abut the violations related to OJ Mayo.

Pete Carroll jumped to the NFL as the NCAA was getting closer to wrapping up its inquiry. Bush as we know is ensconced with the Super Bowl champs, the New Orleans Saints and OJ Mayo plays for the Memphis Grizzlies of the NBA

The music stopped in this game of Musical Chair as of today. Will the cheese stand alone? That is Athletic Director, “Teflon” Mike Garrett. Story on how Garrett uses plausible deniability, here

The NCAA called the situation at the school, a lack of institutional control and while we wait this thing to play out, one huge question remains, “Will Bush lose his Heisman Trophy?”

Re-printed with permission of the author.

Paula Duffy is a national sports columnist for Examiner.com and the Huffington Post and regularly comments on sports/legal matters for radio affiliates of ESPN and Fox Sports. She founded the sports information site, Incidental Contact, is the author of a line of audio books designed for sports novices and in her spare time practices law in Los Angeles. 

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