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SI‘s Stewart Mandel Shares Moronic Reader E-mail About Eric LeGrand

Sports Illustrated college football writer Stewart Mandel hears a lot from fans – when reader mailbags are a significant portion of your job, that tends to happen. It’s got to be interesting to hear from so many readers, some of whom might compliment you, some of whom definitely hate on you. But sometimes someone will say something that’s just…gross.

Mandel received such an e-mail recently, and felt compelled to tweet it to the world. Here it is:

Actual reader email: “How is the Nets giving $75K to an injured player [LeGrand] different from an agent giving Reggie Bush money?”

Ughhhhhhhhh. OK. Here’s the explanation this e-mailer does not deserve. First, Bush was accused of taking $300,000 in cash and gifts, four times the amount LeGrand is getting from the Nets. Second, as the e-mailer says him/herself, Bush took the money from an AGENT (or “sports marketer,” as the person who apparently gave him all that money, Lloyd Lake, claimed to be).

So whereas Lake was compromising Bush’s amateur status and making a mockery of college athletics in an attempt to profit off of him down the line, the Nets were making a nice gesture.

Which brings us to another point: ERIC LEGRAND WAS PARALYZED. Reggie Bush was winning the Heisman trophy and about to sign a lucrative NFL contract. LeGrand is lying in a hospital bed with a long, long road ahead of him just to (hopefully) walk again.

So, in short, the Nets donated to a fund expressly set up for donations so LeGrand’s family can rest a tiny, tiny but easier knowing that people are caring for them, and that some of the many expenses they incur will be covered by people’s generosity. Bush got a house, limo, and money because people thought his talents – which he did not lose in a catastrophic accident – could help them get ahead.

Totally the same thing. Oh, and also this.

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