http://nytimes.feedroom.com/?fr_story=4ece...7d02c1da5a76483
This is a clip from High School. No sound, but its awsome anyway! I really think he was fast enough to play in the pros at 17 years old. Not big enough, but fast enough for sure!
SAN DIEGO, Nov. 27 - Helix High School conveniently stores its old highlight tape of Reggie Bush in the sports medicine center.
"You'll see some stuff on here," Helix Athletic Director Damon Chase cautioned, "that is really pretty sickening."
Despite the lack of a warning label, the footage of Helix's most aerodynamic alumnus can induce dizzy spells, even for that jaded viewer numbed by hours of cable highlight shows. Go to video..
The tape includes eight minutes of cutbacks, jump stops, spin moves and slipped tackles that have not yet been broadcast on national television.
With limited sound and only one slow-motion replay, the tape acts as an underground treasure in Southern California. Watching it feels sort of like listening to a bootlegged copy of a Bob Dylan basement concert. "I don't know who exactly has the tape right now," Chase said. "But I know it's been copied a lot."
At Helix, nostalgic faculty members play it for laughs. At U.S.C., coaches have used it to regale guests. Check out the clip where he runs across the field and back again; the one where he breaks two tackles at the same time; the one where he spins away from a defender, fakes another and hurdles a third; the one where he ...
Bush's college highlights have made him a national phenomenon, but his pre-college highlights are the grainy stuff of prep legend. Before every game, Bush reminds himself where his long broken-field run began. He has instructed the Trojans' equipment coordinator to scrawl San Diego's primary area code, 619, in silver ink on his eye-black patches. Bush's personal fashion statement has already become the latest trend in gridiron style.
"I asked him why he wanted to do it," said Tino Dominguez, U.S.C.'s equipment coordinator. "And he told me he wanted to keep the San Diego tradition alive."
Bush is not the only ball carrier from his hometown with highlight tapes still in circulation. If he can spring another move or two in the regular-season finale Saturday against U.C.L.A., Bush could become the fourth running back from San Diego to win the Heisman Trophy in the past 25 years. Considering that U.S.C. is known as Tailback U, San Diego may soon be regarded as Tailback Town.
"It means a lot to be from the same place as all those Heisman winners," Bush said. "That is something that really drives me. But I'm still curious to see if I can uphold the tradition."
Marcus Allen (Heisman Trophy winner, 1981) was bigger, Ricky Williams (Heisman class of 1998) was stronger and Rashaan Salaam (Heisman class of 1994) ran more upright. But for balance and agility, for turning inside handoffs into outside runs and short passes into mammoth gains, Bush has long been in his own area code.
"I remember that those other backs got hit occasionally in high school," said John Shacklett, a former high school coach in San Diego now on the board of the Hall of Champions, a museum dedicated to local athletics. "But nobody ever touched Reggie."
When Bush was 9 years old, his stepfather put him in a Pop Warner league because the boy was too hyper to keep around the house all the time. In the first game, Bush reportedly finished with seven touchdowns and 287 yards. In the second game, he had eight touchdowns and 544 yards. "I couldn't believe what I saw," said his stepfather, Lamar Griffin.
Bush was practically born into the backfield. He grew up in Southeast San Diego, the same part of the city as Terrell Davis, the former Denver Broncos tailback. As a kid, he watched Marshall Faulk run at San Diego State. Then he started training with LaDainian Tomlinson, the San Diego Chargers' tailback.
"I noticed some of myself in him as far as creativity," Tomlinson said. "He likes to express himself and do different things with the football."
At Helix, coaches used Bush as their starting punter, trusting him to take off whenever he saw an opening. Recruiters seem to remember Helix faking about as many punts as it attempted. "Reggie would line up back there and make 22 people miss," said Kennedy Pola, the former U.S.C. running backs coach. "That's 11 twice."
Still, according to Pola, his colleagues at U.S.C. were not sold on Bush until they saw The Tape. It was hard not to feel sorry for the opposing players on the field. "That's the film that convinced the rest of the staff," said Pola, now an assistant coach with the Jacksonville Jaguars. "They popped it in and went, 'Wow, we've got to get this guy.' "
Bush fit right into U.S.C.'s tailback tradition, but he has never totally fit in with the Trojans. While U.S.C. fashions itself a laid-back champion, staging pranks and playing practical jokes, Bush generally acts as intense as a 10-year pro. When teammates form makeshift mosh pits in the locker room after victories, Bush is more likely to tiptoe on the benches around the perimeter, usually above the fray.
He seems to understand what he has gained and all he has to lose. Bush's mother, Denise, is a deputy sheriff who works at a San Diego jail. His stepfather is a minister and a security guard at a local high school. For cautionary tales, Bush must only listen to his parents, or look at a couple of the Heisman-winning tailbacks from his hometown.
Williams failed multiple drug tests for marijuana and was suspended this season by the National Football League. Salaam admitted to reporters that he took marijuana for depression and said the drug contributed to the disintegration of his N.F.L. career. Another running back from San Diego, Tampa Bay's Michael Pittman, spent two weeks in jail last year after driving his Hummer into his wife's Mercedes.
Bush has another year of college eligibility remaining, but few expect him back at U.S.C. He could easily win the Heisman Trophy and become a top pick in the draft, perhaps going to San Francisco and joining his old high-school quarterback, Alex Smith.
The 49ers can assume that Smith wouldn't mind getting another glimpse of the rolling highlight reel with 619 different moves.
That's what is so fun to watch on his clips, IMO. Not all the moves that he puts on people, but how often he outruns defenders who really have a good angle and they just stop and stare at him. 
