Posted on 12/31/2002 9:24:00 AM PST by Apollo
TEMPE, Ariz. -- We can now say it without much qualification: Maurice Clarett is a strange one.
Humble freshmen don't get in the face of their position coach on national television. Teen-agers who haven't made their bones don't chase the head coach down the sidelines like Keyshawn Johnson yelling, "Give me the damn ball!" Normal 19-year-olds don't upstage a program for their own needs, as the Ohio State running back has done throughout the season.
It's not unusual to find Maurice Clarett offering Jim Tressel coaching advice.(AP) The latest episode came Monday morning when Ohio State's talented first-year running back revealed that a friend back in his native Youngstown, Ohio, had died. Juaquin A. "Juan" Bell, 23, of Youngstown was shot multiple times Dec. 21 in an apparent drug deal gone bad.
Bell's funeral was Monday, about the same time Clarett was answering questions about the Fiesta Bowl in a Phoenix Airport Marriott interview room. The fact he was here instead of Youngstown bubbled to the top.
Clarett went to his coach Sunday saying he wanted to go home for the funeral. He intimated Monday that he wasn't allowed to leave game preparations here by Ohio State, that he was "given the runaround," by the school. He added he was "messed up" because the school "jerked me, kind of."
Then, the bomb fired from the desert all the way back to the school that has coddled him, developed him and given him much more leeway than any freshman should get.
"I guess football's more important than a person's life to them," Clarett said. "That's why I'm ready to get this game over and go back home."
Ohio State scrambled, implementing damage control. Coach Jim Tressel and athletic director Andy Geiger were mobbed by reporters after practice. They were ready to pounce after Clarett painted a picture of a heartless football factory denying a student-athlete the grieving process.
Good story, except it wasn't true.
"I think he knew he could go home," Tressel said.
"We told Maurice that he could fly home, and this is what the compliance people told me," Geiger said.
It's a sad and tragic situation, but the unfortunate fact is that Clarett gets the blame for not being able to make the trip. Not an NCAA that took the bureaucracy out of such situations years ago; it set up the NCAA Special Assistance Fund for just such events. Not Ohio State, which went out of its way to protect its star when he, again, was out of line.
It goes this way: Every incoming scholarship athlete is given something called a FAFSA form when they enroll. It is an application for free federal financial aid. It doesn't cost a thing. There is no downside.
Clarett never filled out the paperwork, even though Ohio State compliance officer Heather Catalano intimated that it's routine for freshmen to do so.
"I don't know why he didn't," she said. "I think he probably intended to do it and never got around to it."
Never got around to it? The budding superstar who was savvy enough to graduate early from high school to enroll early at Ohio State ignored a routine document that could have allowed him to honor his friend properly?
Never got around to it? The one player who gives Ohio State a puncher's chance in the Fiesta Bowl; the back who reads holes like Sandburg read prose; the star whose bravery and ingenuity allowed him to become a freshman All-American basically fumbled life.
If he had filled out the form when he enrolled a year ago, the school could have bought Clarett a plane ticket on their own Sunday. If he had filled out the form, any relative, not just his mother, could have put a plane ticket on a credit card to be reimbursed later by the NCAA, after Clarett filled out the paper work.
"He wanted the easy way," Catalano said. "He didn't want to pay for it."
Why he didn't fill out the paperwork is known only to Clarett. It is well known that his family is not well off. He is from the mean streets of Youngstown. All the more reason to plan ahead.
Clarett's father left home when he was a toddler. He grew up in a house with a mother, grandmother, two brothers and 11 cousins. He saw people die. One tragic tale had Clarett witnessing a neighbor's friend shot, then crawl into his front yard and bleed to death.
All the more reason to take care of details to assure his, and his family's, security. But he didn't. And in what has become a pattern for Clarett, he threw everyone else under the bus instead.
"Life's a whole lot more important than football, you know what I mean?" Clarett said Monday. "We hold the national championship, but they won't talk about the homeless and the poor. We're sitting here in this old grand hotel, things like that, but we can't feed the homeless or poor. ... It's a game."
It would have been nice if Clarett had come back home to honor his friend's memory. But it is becoming increasingly clear that while Clarett is hard to bring down, he isn't always a stand-up guy.
Earlier this year, he stated in a national magazine that he was thinking about challenging the NFL's rule against underclassmen entering the draft. Then he said the comment was taken out of context, reiterating on Monday that "there was nothing there. It was a hypothetical question."
Again, not true. What was so hypothetical about Clarett saying his mother was looking into legally challenging the NFL's rules?
Since that story came out, Clarett has disparaged the story's author. This month, another writer from the same magazine was not allowed access to players at Ohio State because it was upset over the story.
As for the latest matter, someone should be taking some responsibility here. Clarett is going out of his way to make sure it isn't him. In what should have been a trumpet blast of an example to Clarett, teammate Chris Vance already has tapped the NCAA Special Assistance Fund twice to fly home to Florida for emergencies.
Ohio State has 400 scholarship athletes. Catalano said a large number of them filled out and understood and taken advantage of the FAFSA.
"It's pretty straightforward," she said.
Others will try to lay this off as a confusing NCAA rules maneuver. Not so. The existence of the fund itself shows that the NCAA has listened to its constituency.
"There are circumstances in life ... where it seems illogical or inconvenient or inappropriate," Geiger said. "I think the rules are there for good reasons."
If the school is to blame for anything on this one, it's for babying its star. Tressel continually said Monday, "it just didn't work out," when asked about Clarett's trip back home. What he should have said is, "The kid blew it. It's not our fault."
"He's upset," Geiger said when asked about Clarett's inflammatory comments. "I'm not going to lay something on Maurice. We're all concerned for him."
They couldn't -- wouldn't -- blame Clarett during such a sad time in his life. Unfortunately, their star hasn't learned such tact. If Clarett doesn't run for 1,190 yards and 14 touchdowns this year, then his sideline antics border on wacko.
Clarett was seen yelling at running backs coach Tim Spencer during one game. He has been seen literally chasing Tressel down the sidelines "suggesting" plays.
"In big games you want the coach to call your number to kind of put the pressure on yourself," Clarett said. "I just want the pressure to be on. Any athlete should want to make a big play in a big game, if you're a true athlete. A lot of people want to be great, but they don't want to have the pressure on when the game is on the line."
WWWD, or What Would Woody Do, if Clarett had disrupted bowl preparations in such a dramatic way? The answer is recorded on tape of Hayes' last game in the 1978 Gator Bowl when he punched that Clemson linebacker.
Put him on a football field, and Clarett can juke his way out of most situations. But distraught over the loss of a friend Monday, he made the wrong moves.
Compared to the disgraceful grovelling at the feet of OJ, this is much ado about nothing.
I can't find a wire story that mentions an apology by Clarett.
No...it's not.
In God We Trust.....Semper Fi
If it had been the truth it'd be one thing but it wasn't and he needs to take responsibility for his own actions or inactions as the case may be.
In short this is the second time this year that he's opened that cakehole of his and said something he shouldn't have. I don't see any stories about the other 19 year olds on the team doing something similar.
My bet is that before he is 25, he'll be in prison for something he didn't do (well, yes, he did it, but, he'll claim he didn't), like possessing a ton of dope, robbing a bank, or shooting a rival. The problem is that there are black kids like this all over the country, kids with attitude, hostile kids, kids with no brains, who don't carry a football, who think that they, too, are owed.
He knows Ohio State's going to coddle him, so he makes fools of them.
And, somebody's got to say it, he's a minority. No big surprise there.
Does anyone else besides me look at this kid and his antics and see the second coming of Lawrence Philips?
Great game, no discernable brain, and destined to self-destruct.
Oh well.
Sure, I posted the story. I also read the story.
Were you ever 19, or did you spring fully mature and never ever let your emotions rule your head?
Do you let your emotions rule over what you post to FR? When you state that there has been an apology, we'd like to know more about it.
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