Maurice Clarett - Who's surprised?

[guru]

He could have been preparing for another BCS championship game, a couple of Heisman Trophies in his locker, and mega-millions awaiting in the NFL.

Of course, he took a different road, and it reached a destination those of us in Ohio are not surprised by.

Say hi to Nelloms for us Mo.


http://abcnews.go.com/Sports/wireStory?id=1461369

[Pego]

This sort of things does not surprise me, but makes me sad.

[EPelle]

...Clarett sat out the 2003 season after he was charged with misdemeanor falsification for filing a police report claiming that more than $10,000 in clothing, CDs, cash and stereo equipment was stolen from a car he borrowed from a local dealership. He later pleaded guilty to a lesser charge.

Ohio State suspended Clarett for misleading investigators, and for receiving special benefits worth thousands of dollars from a family friend.

After reading about the above offenses - plus the alleged ones regarding grade falsification - the answer is 'no'.

[twittering debutante]

I recall an ESPN report last August which highlighted Clarett at Denver's training camp. He had been suffering from some type of muscle pull, but he seemed EXTREMELY confident it would not prevent him from making the team.

Shanahan, however, was not so confident. Clarett was cut less than a week later.

[Zat0pek]

This sort of things does not surprise me, but makes me sad.

Why does it make you sad? I don't understand that.

This wasn't something that just happened to him, like a car accident that he wasn't his fault. The guy is a criminal. He's simply a punk.

I don't understand being "sad" about someone who chooses to be a criminal, especially when they had the potential to have world by the tail. Sadness, for me, applies to innocent victims.

[guru]

This sort of things does not surprise me, but makes me sad.

Why does it make you sad? I don't understand that.

I don't understand being "sad" about someone who chooses to be a criminal, especially when they had the potential to have world by the tail. Sadness, for me, applies to innocent victims.

I agree with your basic statement Zat0pek, but one thing to be sad about regarding Clarett is how those he trusted misled him and let him down, most notably his mother. She, among others looking out for themselve$$$, pushed him to fight the NFL with LeBron-like comparisons, which of course were only illusions.

He is a punk, no doubt about that. But the die was cast by those who SHOULD have been concerned about what was best for HIM.

[Zat0pek]

But the die was cast by those who SHOULD have been concerned about what was best for HIM.

I don't doubt for a moment that your statement about being misled by the people in his inner circle; that's a common theme anymore, with everyone trying to get a piece of the action. True, no doubt, and that unquestionably led to the disasterous NFL decision.

But he lost. So what? That gives him the right to rob people at gunpoint? The appropriate response was to keep working out, stay healthy, keep the right attitude and maybe he doesn't blow his shot with the Broncos. And if he does, there is the CFL and NFL Europe where many a guy can prove themselves and earn their way back into the fold. But he hasn't been kept out of the NFL for a bum hammy; he's been kept out because he's a punk.

I have a fair amount of experience dealing with guys in his situation and I know exactly what its like. They all have choices, they all have their posse wanting a piece of him. Clarett is a punk, and his particular situation should warrant no sadness or sorrow.

[bad hammy]

But he hasn't been kept out of the NFL for a bum hammy

Oh, never mind - I thought you were calling me a bum, and that I had something to do with him not getting to the NFL.

[Zat0pek]

But he hasn't been kept out of the NFL for a bum hammy

Oh, never mind - I thought you were calling me a bum, and that I had something to do with him not getting to the NFL.

That's exactly why I said "bum hammy" instead of "bad hammy." I didn't want to rile you up. :wink:

[Pego]

I have a fair amount of experience dealing with guys in his situation and I know exactly what its like. They all have choices, they all have their posse wanting a piece of him. Clarett is a punk, and his particular situation should warrant no sadness or sorrow.

While I don't argue your assessment of him, I don't understand why I should be admonished for feeling sadness over somebody throwing away his life. I don't feel sorry for him, but I guess I have a right to have feelings, even for somebody possibly undeserved.

[utkvol80]

The article below is not the one I read this morning in he NY Times, but its just as good:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/04/sport ... arett.html

Clarett is a criminal, but he's a still a star. What does that say about the culture that recognizes him as a star, and I don't mean Columbus, Ohio. Clarett thought his only option in life was to become a professional football player. He thought that because the society in which he lived offered him no other alternatives, other than crime. Some may want to say this is a problem of the emphasis placed on sports in the US, but its a problem with the education system. Think about the kids that are stuck in these lousy schools who don't have the athletic skillls of a Clarett; they are the ones who are truly doomed.

[guru]

Clarett is a criminal, but he's a still a star. What does that say about the culture that recognizes him as a star, and I don't mean Columbus, Ohio. Clarett thought his only option in life was to become a professional football player.

Clarett didn't think his only option in life was to be a professional football player. He thought he could be an extremely RICH football player, and couldn't wait, thanks in large part to his mother and assorted leeches pumping up his ego.

And trust me, he is NO hero in Ohio in general, or Columbus in particular. I'm up there a couple of times of month, and as soon as he left the Buckeyes, then tried to drag them down with him, he became a pariah. Like I said in my original post, it's no surprise to those of us here that he's come to this predicament.

His mom thought she was gonna get "paid", just like LeBron's mom, and just couldn't wait a couple more years.

She was wrong.

[utkvol80]

Guru: That's a great observation. How do you then explain all of this? What were his options other than football?

[guru]

Guru: That's a great observation. How do you then explain all of this? What were his options other than football?

Explain this? One word: Greed.

As for his other options? Finish school, maturing as an athlete in the process, and enter the NFL as a two-time Heisman winner, probably a two-time National Champion(who thinks Ohio State would have lost to Texas with him in the backfield? And OSU's defense is one of the few that could have stopped USC. But that's fodder for another discussion). He could have started his own bank with NFL money he'd received next summer.

Ohio State bent over backwards to try to rehabilitate him following the improprieties that came up his sophomore year, and even if he had to sit out that season, there were plenty of people on High St. that would have welcomed him back with open arms.

[twittering debutante]

This fine young man has been victimized by the system!

Counting the hours before Jessie Jackson arrives in Columbus ...

--developing