AMERICAN FOOTBALL REGGIE BUSH INTERVIEWThe New Orleans running back - a hero not only for his onfield exploits but also for his help to hurricane victims - tells Donald McRaewhy sport and politics do mix
"YOU REALLY don't need a hurricane to knock some common sense into you," Reggie Bush says as he describes how he recently began pre-season training in the devastated city he now calls home.
In early June the most ambitious young star of American football, and his New Orleans Saints team-mates, "went on a mission. We went to Holly Grove, a local neighbourhood, and rebuilt five homes that had been lost in Hurricane Katrina in 2005. We dug holes, we painted, we relandscaped the lawn. I painted a whole house and it was no easy task.
"It was a humbling experience. After three years in a trailer this family went back to a place I'd helped make nice again. That was my reward.
"Anybody in their right mind, if they had their head screwed on tight, would want to do it."
Their American counterparts in the NFL might be as lavishly paid, and often just as self-centred, but it is hard to imagine many Premier League footballers agreeing to rebuild some ruined homes for ordinary families.
Yet, the way Bush talks, a week on a building site might not be a bad way to inject a little humility and reality into the glittering lives of footballers like Cristiano Ronaldo and Ashley Cole who have previously been compared to slaves.
There is also a certain kind of kudos for the returning family - for their house has been painted by a sportsman who has been hailed, bizarrely for Bush himself, as something approaching a deity.
"Reggie Bush is, for want of a better word, a god," gushes Rob Callahan, a police chief in Louisiana.
"I don't think anyone here doesn't know what he's doing for hurricane victims."
The imposing 23-year-old running back is a forceful presence in New Orleans.
But, a few weeks ago, Hurricane Gustav threatened to tear down all the good work done by Bush and the Saints.
After two million people had been evacuated from New Orleans, the luck of a seemingly cursed city finally changed for the better. Having wreaked the worst of its carnage on Haiti, the Caribbean and Cuba, Gustav hurtled past New Orleans.
Yet the fallout from Hurricane Katrina is still felt bitterly - and induces Bush to show some of the muscle that might one day propel him towards a high-flying political career. He clearly already recognises his own considerable clout in America.
Apart from being a former runaway winner of the prestigious Heisman Trophy, for the outstanding performer in college football, he became the second-most-endorsed player in the NFL in his first season - trailing only the feted quarterback Peyton Manning in 2006. Such status encourages Bush to speak his mind.
Reflecting on the abject failure of his presidential namesake, George Bush, to respond to the impoverished and mostly black victims of Katrina, he points out that, "even now, three years on, people are living in trailers. So whatever the government did is not enough. The sad thing about New Orleans is that there is a lot of corruption in the political arena.
"It's sad that people have to put up with this. I don't know how most politicians feel - but I feel ashamed that people in this city, that I represent and live in and fight for, have not only to worry if their child is going to be alive the next day; they also have to worry about their own government stealing money from them."
Bush studied political science at the University of Southern California and so he is quick to stress his belief that "sport is heavily involved in politics. I think they go hand in hand. I feel that athletes have a political voice, and it's a powerful voice."
His endorsements are outrageously lucrative but, in May 2006, soon after arriving in New Orleans in a blaze of NFL hype, he donated €34,000 to save Holy Rosary high school - and locked his sponsors Adidas into the project.
"It's a special-needs school for kids who are mentally retarded, or struggling, and it was going under after Katrina - even though it's one of the few such schools in all New Orleans. I got Adidas to put up $56,000 to keep the school running the next two years. The local football stadium was also destroyed by Katrina. The majority of high-school kids play their games there and I was again able to fund that rebuilding with $86,000."
Bush also pledged half the money he received from sales of his replica Saints jersey to the Katrina fund.
More strikingly, in his first full season in the NFL, he helped raise spirits in demoralised New Orleans while leading a team that shocked America by reaching the NFC Championship game last January.
If he had struggled initially to adapt from college football, Bush unleashed his explosive and elusive running in the second half of that debut season. The Saints were facing the Chicago Bears for the right to play in the 2007 Super Bowl, and a 78-yard downfield rush by Bush resulted in a touchdown that brought them within two points of the home team.
Bush wagged his finger cheekily at the Chicago linebacker Brian Urlacher before somersaulting in joy - a slice of showboating that saw him fined €3,400 by the NFL.
Chicago claimed that Bush's antics inspired their subsequent victory.
"Whatever," Bush shrugs. "Maybe it did. But it was a fantastic play and I got caught up in the moment. The bottom line is they made it to the Super Bowl ahead of us."
Last season, as if still reeling from their post-Katrina heroics, Bush and the Saints never came close to the play-offs.
They appear better-equipped to challenge again this season. In their desperately narrow 34-32 away defeat against the unbeaten Denver Broncos two days ago, the Saints missed a late field-goal. Yet Bush had a fine game, rushing for 73 yards and a touchdown, and he believes New Orleans can succeed, "if we focus on being solid and tough and win at home".
The Saints may have won their only home game played so far this season, against Tampa Bay, but they will swap the New Orleans Superdome for Wembley on October 26th, when they play the San Diego Chargers in one of their designated home matches.
"It's going to be exciting and weird for me in London," Bush says, "because I was a Chargers fan."
Bush's affinity for San Diego, and particularly the Skyline area where he grew up, is plain.
"Skyline is where I come from and I won't forget it. It's not the greatest neighbourhood - with lots of crime - but I had a good family and I learnt all my values there."
His father abandoned them soon after he was born and Bush and his brother were raised by his mother, who worked as a deputy sheriff at the county jail.
While acknowledging the positive influence of his stepfather, Bush says: "My mom has always been the one we've been scared of because she worked in the prisons and she saw the toughest of the tough guys. She definitely disciplined us.
"But she was so tough because she saw the potential in me and my little brother. She kept me in line while making me believe I could do great things."
That assurance and self-belief is evident when Bush, who is often called "The President", considers the rise of Barack Obama and his own possible political future.
"Obama helps us believe anything is possible. Every election you hope you're going to take a step forward with the next president, but with Obama you have the feeling that this is someone who will not be just a good president but a great president.
"I met him at a private event he held in LA and, yeah, I have a gut feeling he will be president. I definitely hope he wins - not because he's black but because he's the right guy for the job."
Having also met the outgoing president "quite a few times", he grimaces at sharing a surname with George Bush.
"I just try to be the better Bush."
The better Bush, the multimillionaire sports star who has learnt the value of picking up a brush and painting walls all week, does not miss a beat when asked if he would like to follow Obama into politics and perhaps, one day, even into the White House?
"I would definitely love to do something like that. Maybe even when I'm in football there might be time for some political stuff."
Bush has already voiced his political concerns over hurricane-torn New Orleans but, while acknowledging the risk of hubris, he is aiming still higher. Does he truly believe that he might eventually stand for president?
"I definitely feel that, if I work hard enough, it could be a possibility. But it's not like I sit down and think, 'I would like to be president of the United States!'
"As a kid you might say that kind of thing but as you grow up you realise that to become president is a tough achievement. So I don't know how realistic it is for me. But I believe that if I set my sights on it I can achieve it."
Reggie Bush
Height:6 ft
Weight:203 lbs
Age:23
Born:March 2nd, 1985 - Spring Valley, California
College:USC
Experience:Third season
Draft:2006 - First round (2nd pick) by the New Orleans Saints
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