MEDIA: Yaeger: To complete this 'Tarnished' story...
only former USC star Bush can write final chapter
Don Yaeger knows it from first-hand knowledge.
Before the former Sports Illustrated editor and investigative reporter quickly authored a book released in early 2008 called "Tarnished Heisman: Did Reggie Bush Turn His Final College Season into a Six-Figure Job?" Bush would not answer repeated requests for interviews.
Just as well. The evidence produced in the 200-plus pages was damning enough, and pretty much answered the question that the book title posed.
Yet Bush, already a member of the New Orleans Saints, trashed it as more media hogwash.
Similarly, he blamed "persistent media speculation" this week for becoming so "painful" and "distracting" that it was given as a reason for his volunteering to return his 2005 Heisman Trophy.
"Any journalist who says he doesn't feel satisfaction when ultimately he's proved right is lying," Yaeger said Thursday morning from New York, "although it's also sad in that you hate to be right in this situation. But I think I hate it less because of the way Reggie handled himself when the book came out, as well as the last couple of years.
"He made a lot of personal attacks on me, calling it some `lousy reporting by a journalist trying to make money off me.' So given that, it's even more shameful that
he won't say `I did it ... I was young and stupid.'
"(Using the excuse of `media speculation') is his attempt to shift blame to the media. Trust me, you could take all the media salaries of those who covered this and it wouldn't add up to what he made that year he won the Heisman. Maybe that's a little facetious, but he out-earned the rest of us (an estimated $300,000 in benefits) while he was an amateur."
There are a lot of things Bush hasn't said to the media prior to and including this week, outside of his 340-word statement posted on the Saints' website as it relates to his Heisman fumble. Columnists, radio talk-show hosts and Internet keyboard pounders continue to demand more material with which to speculate. But most journalists would like some facts revealed to finish the saga.
After Bush's decision was made public Tuesday, Yaeger says he started discussions with Pocket Books, a division of Simon & Schuster, about revising "Tarnished Heisman" with a final chapter.
"We'd love to put a bow on it, but we really can't yet," Yaeger said. "The bow needs to be tied by Reggie."
Meaning, Yaeger admits, it's all about Bush admitting guilt. A story of Bush's redemption can't be written by the journalists until he helps move the script along the proper arch.
"You'll never have the redemptive story until he asks for forgiveness - that's what I was taught by my Methodist preacher father," Yaeger said.
Now working on a new book about New York Jets coach Rex Ryan, having just completed a biography on Baltimore Ravens offensive lineman Michael Oher, the subject of the movie "The Blind Side," Yaeger isn't in the "gotcha journalism" business. He was recruited to write the "Tarnished Heisman" and turn it around in about five months because of his ability to collect information (much of it from local newspaper coverage) and weigh its value. Literary lawyers then pored over it to make sure it wasn't going to get them sued - Bush himself never threatened that avenue.
Lloyd Lake, the agent at the focus of the investigation, never talked to the NCAA as per an agreement he made with the former USC star. But he did talk to Yaeger and was compensated.
Yet, if Yaeger was out to make a quick buck on this book - it sold for $26 a copy - he did a poor job. Most of his research was available for free on a website he created, www.tarnishedheisman.com, so one could hear actual taped conversations and interviews.
"My publisher wasn't happy with that, but no one could say we were being opportunists," Yaeger said. "We wanted the media to have access to it."
If he were to add a final chapter, Yaeger said he'd like it to be focused on Bush "manning up," as they say in the sports world. But he continues to make it a story of lying and putting blame on someone other than who is at fault - himself. It's the most basic thing he can do.
"What he did this week - he knew the Heisman Trust would take the trophy away, so he short-circuited their decision. That's good. But it's the closest thing to something smart he's done in this entire process."
http://www.dailybreeze.com/sports/ci_16098224
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Posted: 09/16/2010 09:36:52 PM PDT