Note to Kids: Don't be like Maurice Clarett (Please!!!)
Some of you may remember the name Maurice Clarett, the Ohio State University running back who led the Buckeyes to a national championship as a freshman in 2002, running for 1237 yards and 18 touchdowns before his life went down the toilet faster than that bean and onion burrito you ate last week. Everything you need to know about the course his life has taken over the past few years can be summarized by these two images:
2002 2006
In the aftermath of his breakthrough Fiesta Bowl performance as a freshman, Clarett apparently decided that it was now time for him to cash in, ignoring even the barest pretense of being a "student-athlete." One possible factor for his decision to abandon the charade that is big time college athletics was the success had by Lebron James, his high school sports star buddy from Ohio, in getting paid big time when he jumped directly to the NBA from high school in 2003. But 2003 would be very different from 2002 for Clarett. First, some professors from OSU made the claim that Clarett had received unfair academic assistance while at school. Then came the incident that effectively ended his amateur career: Clarett was charged with filing a false police report when he claimed that more than $10,000 worth of clothing, CDs, cash and other property were stolen from his rental car (which he had gotten for free from the dealer, a big OSU supporter). In the ensuing NCAA investigation Clarett repeatedly stonewalled investigators by answering "I don't know" to almost all their questions. He was ruled ineligible for his sophomore season at OSU and kicked off the team. He then decided to try to enter the 2004 NFL Draft and challenged the NFL's early entry rule in court (players are prohibited from entering the league for three years following the graduation of their high school class), but his suit was ultimately unsuccessful and Clarett was left hanging in the wind for a full year.
Initially, a lower court had ruled in Clarett's favor (before the NFL successfully appealed), creating a window of several weeks in 2004 when Clarett thought he would be eligible for the draft. It was during this period that Clarett's relationship with Ohio State University was permanently destroyed and OSU coach Jim Tressel and Athletics Director Andy Geiger supposedly began badmouthing Clarett to NFL teams. This led Clarett to go off on the school in an amazing tell-all article written by Tom Friend entitled "My Side" which was published in ESPN Magazine in November of 2004. Clarett felt that he was betrayed by the school he had led to the national title and then protected from serious scandal by remaining silent during the 2003 NCAA investigation. Now, he let loose with accusations of a wide variety of wrongdoing in the OSU football program. For anyone interested in understanding the mechanics of high-stakes college sports (the money, the cars, the fake jobs and fake classes) and the myth of the "student-athlete", this article is a must read.
Clarett finally became eligible for the NFL draft in 2005, but by then two full years off the field had left him a shell of his former self. His weight gain was a major concern for NFL teams, and his lack of desire and focus, which had always been subject to question, was viewed as a serious problem. After a very dissapointing performance at the NFL combine, he defied experts by being chosen with the last pick of the 3rd Round in the draft by the Denver Broncos. However, his career as an NFL player did not last very long. Clarett was released by the Broncos on August 28, 2005 before ever taking the field in a regular season NFL game. His misfortune was compounded by the fact that he had refused the Broncos offer of a standard rookie contract which would have contained $430,000 in guaranteed money (unlike other sports leagues, NFL contracts are not guaranteed with the exception of the signing bonus). He instead chose to gamble on a contract which could have paid him a lot of money ($7 million over 4 years) if he became a productive player, but guaranteed him nothing if he didn't. Clarett's football career, which had started with unprecedented success, was now over and he had nothing to show for it.
The next year of Maurice Clarett's life completed his fall from grace. On New Year's Day in 2006, he was arrested for armed robbery. He had been attempting to make another run of it with football by trying to land a contract with a team in NFL Europe and had resumed speaking to Tressel, his old coach, on a sporadic basis. Even his court proceedings did not go smoothly, with Clarett firing his lawyers on July 26, 2006. The lawyers had apparently filed a motion to withdraw as his counsel two days earlier due to his failure to pay their bills or cooperate with his defense. On the morning of August 9, while awaiting trial on the robery charges, Clarett was arrested again when, after being stopped by police for making an illegal U-turn, police found an arsenal of weapons in the SUV he was driving which could make an Iraqi insurgent blush . This included an AK-47, a hatchet, and three handguns, as well as an open bottle of Grey Goose vodka. In case any of you don't believe us (and we couldn't blame if you didn't), here is a picure of the inside of Clarett's car to prove it:
Before being apprehended, Clarett had attempted to escape, a chase which ended when police used spikes to flatten his tires (a map of the chase is available here). Furthermore, the police had to use Mace to restrain Clarett when attempts to subdue him with a Taser proved ineffective (he was apparently wearing Kevlar body armor). Earlier on that very morning, Clarett had called up Tom Friend, the ESPN writer who had written about him two years earlier, and spoke about his newfound desire to get his life together in light of the recent birth of a baby girl. Friend then wrote another amazing article about this conversation and about Clarett's overall downfall, entitled "Clarett's call came two hours before arrest." This article can be found here. Another great analysis of Clarett's sad story and the example it should set for other promising young athletes was written by the great Michael Wilbon in the Washington Post a day after Clarett's second arrest.
The end of this chapter in the Clarett saga came on September 18, when Clarett agreed to a plea bargain and was sentenced to seven and half years in prison (he is only expected to serve three and half years of the sentence). He had already been in prison since his August arrest, when his bail was set at $5 million. In December, it was announced that Clarett had been transferred to the Toledo Correctional Institution, where he will be help in a single person cell for the remainder of his sentence. While It's Still News usually promises to keep you posted, in Clarett's case it seems like there won't be too many updates until sometime in 2010.