Oh, how I grieve for our wounded NCAA Football …

I don’t know about you, but I am feeling mucho relieved that the purity and sanctity of big-time college football has been duly restored with news that Reggie Bush has forfeited his 2005 Heisman Trophy.

I had fretted for quite some time that the unadulterated innocence and integrity of amateur sport that is so neatly personified by Division IAA Football was being horribly sullied by this miscreant who had the temerity to accept these hideous perks that came his way at USC.

Thank God, we can all relax now that the most grievous offender in the history of the college game has been quite properly exposed and punished. It’s just so heartbreaking to recount that Bush had so completely fooled all of the coaches and administrators who never realized that the potential existed for these kinds of misdeeds in their beloved football program that had historically exemplified and celebrated the unfettered joy and innocence of amateur sport.

I am certain that no other event of this magnitude has ever taken place within the hallowed NCAA gridiron, since their crack investigators would have surely sniffed out just such a transgression and appropriately dealt with all the guilty parties. Since the limit of their well-deserved and carefully administered powers are confined to spanking the athlete and the offending university, it's just a crying shame that their legendary enforcement efforts and sanctions couldn't be wielded more broadly. Not that there's all that much additional blame to go around; clearly the evil doer here is the crafty teen-aged athlete who takes advantage of a noble program for his own personal gain, manipulating otherwise trustworthy and well-meaning boosters and local business people in the process. My heart goes out to these folks as well; clearly they have been victimized just as much as the rest of us have.

I, of course, take great comfort from the knowledge that this kind of event is clearly an anomaly and that with the banishment of Bush from the Heisman annals and the severe NCAA sanctions planted on that innocent bystander USC, this once-in-a-lifetime desecration or our beloved college game can never, ever, ever happen again.

And just in case you were wondering, the Heisman Trophy pictured with this entry is not the one that the disgraced Bush has surrendered. If your eyesight is so acute that you can read the plaque on this trophy, I would urge you to use your super powers for the good of all mankind.

Just like the NCAA does.