Maurice Clarett Arrested -- Again.

When I hear Maurice Clarett's name, I think of the brown bunny sodomy/full swallow/finish it off with a rim job that ESPN writer Tom Friend once gave Clarett:

really happened to ClarettBy Tom Friend
ESPN The Magazine
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In another example of how five seconds can definitively change your life,
we present you with Maurice Clarett.

He ran/jogged a 4.82-second 40-yard dash at the NFL Scouting Combine --
live on national TV, no less -- and now he's a mystery all over again.
Everyone is taking shots at Clarett. Some media members actually sat in
the press room Saturday laughing out loud at his expense. One NFC scout
said he could've run better than Clarett.

But that wasn't the worst of it. After Clarett ran a 4.72 in his second
attempt -- and decided, out of frustration, to blow off the rest of the
drills -- many teams wrote him off completely. They said if he quits at a
combine, he'll quit in a fourth quarter somewhere. That's how a lot of NFL
people think, and probably nothing can change their minds ... not even the
whole story.

But someone -- maybe an Arizona, maybe an Oakland -- will try to find out
what really happened to Maurice Clarett at the combine and over the last
12 months. And maybe then they'll get off his back.


Let's go back a year, to the 2004 combine. Clarett, who at the time was
eligible for the draft, noticed how the scouts, during the weigh-in, were
salivating over Greg Jones of Florida State. Jones was chiseled, looking
like an Adonis, and a flabby Clarett made a mental note right then that it
should've been him.

Later, after the courts had removed him from the 2004 draft, his mind kept
drifting back to Jones. If he was going to repeat the process, and parade
again in front of NFL scouts in his underwear, he was going to be buff. In
fact, he said he was going to look better than Jones. He was going to look
like David Boston.

In retrospect, it was a mistake. Boston, the sculpted Miami Dolphins wide
receiver, has tried in the past to play at 250-plus pounds, and has
experienced knee problems as a result. Clarett ended up following a
similar training and eating regimen and, while he appeared rock solid, his
body mass had increased too much. His work ethic was commendable and his
body fat was plummeting, but his weight was exorbitant and there had to be
some doubt about what it would do to his speed.

Eventually, by late January, he was ready to choose his agents. And in
concert with his attorney, David Kenner, he settled on Steve Feldman, who
represents Corey Dillon and Rodney Harrison of the world champion New
England Patriots. Feldman and his associate, Josh Luchs, explained to
Clarett that he had to get his weight down, preferably in the 220s, and
Kenner -- Clarett's most trusted confidant -- agreed with them.

By this time, Clarett still had not settled on a permanent trainer, so on
his own, according to Kenner, he began working "16-hour days" in Los
Angeles to get trimmer and leaner. No one knows how heavy he'd been at his
apex -- although it's conceivable he'd been around 250 pounds at one point
-- but it was through tireless work that he showed up in Indianapolis at
234.

The problem was, his body might have been sapped from losing a lot of
weight in a short period of time. And he was also way too nervous,
skittish that his entire future was coming down to a three-day period in
Indianapolis. He actually ended up flying into Indy two days ahead of the
combine, afraid that he couldn't get a proper workout in rain-infested
Southern California. That's how intent he was about performing well; he
was borderline neurotic about it.

The first two days of the combine seemed to ease his fears a little. His
press conference, his first public appearance in a year, was an
unequivocal success. He never bashed his former school, Ohio State, and he
explained that he'd do every drill the NFL people asked him to do, that he
was willing to play special teams next season or be third string. His
interviews with teams went smoothly as well, because he was forthright and
humble.

A year before, when a few teams asked about his family, he snapped, "What
does my family have to do with anything? I'm here to play football." He'd
been confrontational, a loner, but this time he was one of the pack.
Players wanted to eat meals with him, were following him around, were
asking him questions about the combine.

After he did 22 repetitions of 225 pounds on the bench press -- one of the
best numbers put up by a running back -- most teams were beginning to
perceive him as a first-day draft pick. They liked that his body fat was
down from almost 17 percent last year to 11.4 percent this year.

But every night, late at night, he'd still get back on the hotel
treadmill. He was worried about the 40, knew he had to deliver in the 40.

cont..

 

....

The pressure had to be getting to him. No one was more scrutinized that
week than him, and on the day before the 40-yard dashes, he took off
during his lunch break and ran wind sprints on an outdoor track in
30-degree weather.

Even that night, 14 hours before his 40-yard dash, he was back on the
hotel treadmill, running, thinking, analyzing.

The next day, of course, was a disaster. He's never been a speedster
anyway, but his 40s lacked explosion. He looked spent, defeated. The worst
thing he could've done was quit, but that's what he did, on a whim,
overwhelmed by the embarrassment of it all. Last year, completely out of
shape, he had run a 4.6. This year, in shape, he'd run a 4.8.

His closest confidants felt he'd over-trained, but the spin had already
been spun by then. Word traveled fast. NFL people said he was a bust, that
he might not get drafted. It broke his heart, and in a post-40 interview
with The NFL Network, which no one in their right mind would have expected
him to do, he was inconsolable and took full responsibility for his
collapse.

Where does he go from here? He's back in L.A., and he's headed back to the
gym, back to a trainer who specializes in speed and fast muscle twitch. He
said he will work out at Ohio State's Pro Day, on March 9, but this is
news to Ohio State, where he is essentially on a black list.

Either way, he will run again, at a weight better suited for the 40, and
his hope is that some team, any team will bring a stopwatch.

Because all it takes is one.

Tom Friend is a senior writer for ESPN The Magazine. E-mail him at
tom.friend@espnmag.com.

 

By the way, you had to love the quote from the owner of the Youngstown, Ohio arena team that Clarett was negotiating with to play this season. He said he'd still "sign [Clarett] tomorrow.

Given the fact that the nickname of the team is the Youngstown Hitmen, that's not surprising. Although it is a great name, considering Youngstown's mobbed-up history.

 

Well, hell yeah. It's arena football...they'll sign any familiar name to get attention. If some guy who started at Ohio State in the 1970s wanted to play for the team, they would sign him in a heartbeat. Plus, the salaries are about $500 a game. It's a no lose situation for the team. Clarett signs with the team, they get a lot of attention and probably a couple of thousand extra people in the stands. If he gets arrested again or flops, no big deal.

 

Here's what I don't understand about Clarett, no not the guns and vodka and vest because that makes sense at this point. For me, I don't understand why a guy who couldn't stay healthy enough as a freshman in the Big Ten to play every game thought for one second that he could play in the league. He's a joke. Maybe if he stayed at OSU for two more years, which surely would have been a drag you know playing for one of the top program's, getting beejers from coeds, getting paid under the table, etc., then he could have got it together and played in the NFL. But after one year of showing you can't take the punishment?

 

It goes back to Whitlock's comments on The Sports Reporters about how fans shouldn't look at athletes as role models because they'll let you down.

Until Maurice Clarett blew up at OSU, he had lived his entire life being told how great he was. He got illegal booster money at OSU, was given the use of an automobile and who knows how many other illegal perks, simply because he could run the ball. There was nothing else even remotely redeeming about this individual yet, because he helped lead OSU to a national championship, his place as a revered symbol of Buckeye football would have lasted a lifetime. That is, until he became a national joke. It wasn't good enough to take the illegal money and skate through the easy OSU curriculum and play football for a couple of years until he was ready for the NFL.

Maurice wanted what his good friend Lebron was going to have. The money, the status, the women. . . he didn't want to wait. More importantly -- and it appears unlike Lebron -- he didn't want to work for it. He thought that he should be handed a pro career and the perks and benefits that came with it.

I don't know who said it, but I saw it recently somewhere that unlike his predecessors in the NBA, a certain athlete didn't love playing basketball, but he did love what playing basketball provided him. . . the money, house, car, etc. The old-timers who started their respective pro leagues didn't play for the money. Now, it is all about money.

I have personally seen a number of college athletes with definate pro potential but they weren't willing to work hard to make it happen. As one coach once referred to it, "they wanted to play in the pros instead of having a pro career." They ended up getting the shot at the pros and then floundered because they were no longer the most-gifted athlete on the playing field and to get ahead, they were going to have to work.

In reference to the thread about asking a player for his autograph. . . why bother, he probably isn't worthy of sitting in your dining room and have dinner with you. Just because you throw a football or can consistantly average 25 points a game, doesn't mean that you are anything special.

</rant>

 

Damn, the HitMen are screwed now that their stud RB might be in legal trouble. That's the Mahoning Valley HitMen of the Eastern Indoor Football League for those of you who don't know where Clarett is supposed to be playing next season. (team website: http://www.mvhitmen.com/) (team logo: ) (number of players listed on their roster: 2) (number of teams in the league: 5)

 

Might have been mentioned earlier, but apparently Clarett called Friend a few hours before he was arrested to say that he'd turned his life around because he now has a little daughter. Friend said that Clarett sounded paranoid, which might explain the vest.

 

Apparently Hitmen coach Terry Young isn't strict in the Lombardi/Parcells mode. And the second part of the quote is even more amazing, to me.
From the AP story:

"We gave him a chance and now we'll wait to see what happens," he said. "I've seen far worse situations than this."

Far worse situations? Where, on "Cops"?

 

Friend should have told Mo a year ago that a Kevlar vest doesn't work for *that* kind of protection.

 

If the guy prepared for football like he did for what happened during his previous arrest -- wearing a bulletproof vest to avoid gunshots and I guess Tazors -- then he could have had a productive career in the NFL.

If only someone followed both LeBron and Mo to do a Hoops Style-documentary about two very different paths taken.

 

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/columns/story?id=2545078

I didn't see this in this thread yet. Combined with the guy's story from after the combine, it's interesting. Seems to be a little different story this time though. He went from "trying to be a bigger, fatter back and look like Boston" to hanging with rappers, being scared to work out and deciding to use roids like Boston.