A little brotherly advice for Reggie - Stay away from girls who make sex tapes

One of my best friends was born in Shanghai, so he was legally not allowed to have a brother. At his surprise 25th birthday party, he told his friends that didn’t matter any more because we were his brothers. “There is nothing like a brother,” he said. I’ll never forget that because it made me grateful for my three big brothers and the lessons I learned from them growing up. They taught me to be loyal, they taught me sometimes you have to hit first, and they taught me to never play myself (for the slang impaired, that means never make yourself look bad). I don’t know if former USC running back Reggie Bush has a big brother, but he really needs one right now. So I’m offering Reggie this brotherly advice: you’re playing yourself right now, knock it off.

I understand where your head is at right now, Reg. You grew up in San Diego, so you had Hollywood dreams. You came to L.A. where, by the age of nineteen, you became a star at USC. You played in two national championship games by the age of twenty, winning one of them. You were a Heisman trophy finalist as a sophomore and won the award as a junior. And you enjoyed all the nubile, hard-bodied benefits of being a high profile LA bachelor. And I ain’t mad at’cha for that, little brother. But that was college – where the worst thing that could happen to you if you messed up was you would lose eligibility (like coach Pete Carroll would ever let that happen). Now you’re a professional, you just can’t have the off-the-field distractions you had back in school because there is too much money at stake.

I’ve got to hand it to you – your pro career started with a bang. The only NFL player who had more than your $5 million in endorsements by this point in his career was Peyton Manning with $10 million, and you became the signature athlete on the New Orleans Saints before you ever played a single minute of pro football. Why? Because coming out of college, you were a winner. But the big difference between (ahem) amateur athletics at USC and professional sports is that winning is much more difficult in the NFL. It’s also tougher to earn the respect of NFL players. They don’t care about your Heisman, they care about your work ethic and your dedication to your team. But when you miss a month of off-season workouts in New Orleans so you can shoot commercials in L.A., that tells your teammates you’re not with them. When you take off for Madrid to film a spot with futbol star David Beckham, that tells your coaches that you’re not focused on NFL football. And when you miss games because of an injury which may have been prevented by working out harder in the off-season, you’ve played yourself.

Your biggest problem, though, isn’t the way you’re handling (or not handling) your football business, little brother. Your biggest problem is how you’re handling your personal life. I won’t even get into the whole issue of accepting favors while you were at USC because I don’t care about that. The university isn’t owed an explanation or anything else, for that matter. You more than lived up to your end of the deal on the field and if the university wants to pretend it didn’t know you were getting special treatment, then let them have their hypocrisy.

No, you’re biggest problem is that you are seriously considering marrying Kim Kardashian. Never mind that NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell is trying to turn players into boy scouts, do you realize what being married to an amateur porn star is going to do to your endorsement deals? I’m not saying your wife needs to be Polly Pureheart, but she should at least be good for your image. The fact that footage of your queen to be engaging in sex acts is readily available on-line for $4.95 and she put her lovely lady lumps on display in Playboy is most certainly not good for your image. Neither is the fact that she’s been “linked” with (and I’m sorry to do this, little brother): the Game, Nick Cannon, Benji Madden, Nick Lachey, Joe Francis, Fabolous, Terrance Howard, Evan Ross, and Ray J – and none of them ever gave her a ring.

A lot of guys think about it, Reg, but very few actually do it. Dennis Rodman and Dave Navarro tried with Carmen Electra; Tommy Lee, Kid Rock, and Rick Solomon tried with Pam Anderson; even Sean Penn tried with Madonna - and they all played themselves. Because you can’t turn a hoe into a housewife, even if she’s a “socialite” from Beverly Hills.