Maurice Clarett is Back
Maurice Clarett, as you may recall, was the true freshman running back at Ohio State University whose brilliant running led them to the 2003 National Championship. He had always been standoffish and critical of the school and the NCAA in general. Both parties essentially told him to “shut up and get back out on the field.” Ultimately, he became embroiled in various NCAA investigations and left OSU to try to enter the NFL Draft. The NFL has what amounts to a minimum age requirement for entering the draft, which Clarett did not meet. He sued to enter the draft (along with USC‘s Mike Williams) and while he did not lose the case, the NFL was granted an injunction that prevented him from actually participating until a decision had been rendered. The NFL was able to achieve this by stating that they would hold a supplementary draft if they eventually lost the case. I felt that this was something of a miscarriage of justice, as a de facto decision was made without legal arguments on the case itself. To compound the issue, the media widely reported that Clarrett “had lost the case.”
I have never met Maurice Clarett, and he has said some things in the media that I didn’t like, but he was nineteen years old and even ten years older than that I still say lots of stupid things. At nineteen, I probably would have said every stupid thing he’s said, and more. When I say that he’s said “stupid things” I don’t mean that they weren’t truthful or insightful, but that they didn’t help him towards his presumed goal of playing in the NFL. In any case, for some reason, I felt like I understood something about Clarrett. His problem is that he is too smart to just “take it” the way that every other NCAA player with NFL dreams takes it. He saw the NCAA and college football for what it is – a huge source of revenue for the universities, on the backs of unpaid participants. While Major League Baseball must pay millions of dollars a year to manage minor league teams, the NFL gets a minor league system for free. The only people who aren’t making money off of the system are the players themselves. Clarrett obviously realized this imbalance and thought that his immense talent and desirability as a player would overcome his lack of lawyers, his lack of money and the color of his skin, when he went after both pillars of football establishment (the NCAA and the NFL) at once. What does he think this is – a meritocracy?
A few things have happened now. A humbled Maurice Clarett went to the NFL Draft Combine and unfortunately further humbled himself by running a 4.72 4.82 in the 40 (slow by NFL running back standards). He put together a pro-day, however, and worked hard to get his 40 time down, and it looks like he succeeded. His draft stock isn’t particularly high now, but I can almost guarantee that he will get drafted. It will be in the late rounds, but there are coaches and general managers out there who saw his genius running for Ohio State and just aren’t talking about it because they don’t want him to appear desirable (this is capitalism after all). Complicating things significantly is the soft market for running backs this season, even with the gaping hole left by Ricky Williams at Miami.
Stay tuned, both in the draft, and down the road, when Clarett pulls on his pads.