Eventual Hall of Fame running back Marshall Faulk recently attended the Jim Mora Celebrity Golf Classic. While there, Faulk answered questions about the man who replaced Mora in Seattle, Pete Carroll.
Carroll came to the Seahawks from USC. Last month, the NCAA announced significant sanctions against the program arising from payments made by prospective agents to tailback Reggie Bush in 2004 and 2005.
“I love Pete, and I’m not quite sure how they’re gonna turn out, but I’m getting sick and tired of seeing programs get in trouble, and coaches can move on, but the players at USC can’t go to bowl games,” Faulk told Jim Moore of SeattlePI.com. “There’s got to be some accountability and responsibility. I’m not just blaming Pete; I’m talking about guys in that situation. . . .
“Here’s my thing -- it’s well-documented that if you’re not cheating, you’re not trying in sports. Some of the best things that are done in sports are illegal. You work around the rules and try to get things done.”
Faulk knows a thing or two about the topic. He was a member of the 2001 Rams, and some members of the 2001 Rams believe that the Patriots secretly videotaped their final walk-through practice before Super Bowl XXXVI. “Maybe this did happen,” Faulk when reports (later retracted) of the surreptitious camera work arose in February 2008. “I had put this game behind me. All in all, it just brings out emotions that you really don’t want to talk about or think about in that sense. I don’t think there’s anything you can do about it. If that’s true, they got away with it. So be it.”
Faulk also has a “so be it” attitude regarding players like Bush who got paid while playing college football. In fact, Faulk says that, if he’d been offered money, he would have taken it, too.
“Heck yeah, I would have taken it,” Faulk told Moore. “I’m not gonna lie to you, there’s no doubt about it.”
Faulk’s views make it easier to understand why Bush (allegedly) took the money. And while Faulk won’t lie about the fact that he would have taken money while playing for the Aztecs, he surely would lie about receiving money if someone had asked him after the fact whether he had gotten paid.