Louisville football: The 50 greatest Cardinals of all time

On the first day of my senior year chemistry class at Male High School with the beloved Mr. Wright, he explained to us a side project that he allowed his students to do for extra credit. All students had to do was pick any occupation that they were interested in, follow someone in that profession and write about it.

It was one that piqued most students’ interest, primarily because Mr. Wright’s class was hard and any extra credit would be greatly needed to survive his class with a grade that wouldn’t sink one’s GPA; But secondly, because it challenged students to strongly consider their career before entering the unknown of the college world.

Wright continued to explain his reasoning for having a class do something completely unrelated to chemistry to earn extra credit by giving a perfect real-world example. When he assigned the task in his class in 2003, star athlete Michael Bush didn’t know what he wanted to do with his life, but he sure as heck didn’t think it was football.

This was surprising to Wright, who was a well-known presence on the sidelines of most home football and basketball games, and watched first-hand as Bush destroyed the competition as a multi-sport athlete. At a school that produced people at the top of their field from Darrell Griffith to Hunter S. Thompson, Bush was perhaps the biggest name to attend Male yet.

But Bush listened and he went and shadowed a football team for a day. It was then that he understood where his future was.

Bush could’ve gone anywhere in the country, but he chose to stay home and play for his city. Maybe it was because of the chance to play with Brian Brohm and represent his city?

However, Bush was a quarterback in high school and he could have continued his career in the spotlight anywhere from Ohio State to Tennessee. But Bush decided to stay home, and for that, Louisville faithful are forever grateful.

Bush went on to become one of the best running backs in Louisville’s history. Rushing for over 500 yards and six touchdowns as a freshman, Bush showed some real promise. He went on to rush for nearly 2,000 yards in the next two years and 30 touchdowns.

Entering his senior season, Bush was in the middle of the Heisman Trophy conversation and proved why right away. In his first game of 2006, Bush recorded 129 rushing yards and three touchdowns before suffering a season-ending leg injury that ended his storied career at Louisville in the blink of an eye.

Coming into the season, Bush was being discussed as a potential top-10 pick in the NFL Draft. It’s a shame we all didn’t get to see what he had in store for us his senior season. Nonetheless, Bush was a beast and will always be one of the best to wear the red and black.

Even without playing more than a half of a game his senior season, Bush still sits at No. 8 on the all-time rushing yards list and No. 3 in rushing touchdowns scored.

To this day, there is little doubt that had Bush remained healthy, he would widely be considered one of the best college running backs of all time. Every diehard Cards fan is convinced that Louisville would have had their first undefeated season in school history in 2006 en route to a national title game.

Bush went on to have a moderately successful NFL career after being drafted by and playing for the Oakland Raiders before moving to the Chicago Bears and the Arizona Cardinals. Bush finished his career with 4,260 total yards and 31 touchdowns, far better than what he anticipated during his senior year of college.