November 9, 200421 yr Ending six months of silence, former Ohio State running back Maurice Clarett has told ESPN The Magazine in this week's edition that he "took the fall" for the school during a 2003 NCAA investigation and that he's talking now because he wants to "clear his name" with National Football League owners and general managers. Clarett says that while he was at Ohio State in 2002 and 2003 head coach Jim Tressel, as well as certain members of his staff and boosters, provided him with improper benefits. He says he covered up Tressel's improprieties during the NCAA investigation and afterward, Ohio State "blackballed'' him from the football program. According to Clarett, Tressel arranged loaner cars for him and Tressel's brother, d***, found him lucrative landscaping jobs that he did not even have to show up for. He says members of Tressel's staff also introduced him to boosters who'd slip him thousands of dollars, and the better he played, the more cash he'd receive. He says boosters eventually began inviting him into their homes or would meet him out in the community. "When you'd leave, [the booster] sets you straight," Clarett told The Magazine. "They say, 'You got any money in your pocket?' They make sure your money's straight." Clarett also says he likely would have been ineligible for Ohio State's national title season of 2002 if the football staff had not "aligned'' him with an academic advisor whose goal was simply to keep him eligible. He says the academic advisor enrolled him in Independent Study courses and also put him with hand-picked teachers who would pass him whether he attended their classes or not. He says his advisor also introduced him to a tutor who prepared outlines and told him what to write for assignments. Another former Ohio State player, linebacker Marco Cooper (2000-01; Spring 2002), corroborated many of Clarett's comments. Cooper, who was suspended from the team following two arrests for drug possession, says he also had bogus landscaping jobs, that a booster helped furnish his apartment, and that he was able to borrow cars from local Columbus dealerships in exchange for signed OSU memorabilia. Another former Buckeyes player, current Maryland running back Sammy Maldonado, says he was placed in so many courses that did not put him on the road to graduation that only 17 of a possible 40 credits earned would transfer to his new school. Ohio State officials have declined to comment on many of the allegations. School President Karen Holbrook, Jim Tressel and d*** Tressel refused to respond through spokespersons, while Athletic Director Andy Geiger said he would not answer questions until after the magazine story appeared, if then. Maurice Clarett Maurice Clarett says he received improper benefits during his time at Ohio State. "We went through a yearlong investigation of our academic programs, everything that [Clarett] has to allege,'' Geiger said. "He vowed to me that he would do something to try to get us and this may be what he's trying to do. So he's on his own. "We dealt with this guy [Clarett] for 18 months. I just hope you've checked into the background and history of who you're dealing with.'' Clarett's former academic advisor and tutor also declined comment. The NCAA, which investigated Clarett for potential academic and financial irregularities in the summer of 2003, said it is against its policy to discuss the Clarett case. Clarett, 21, who gained 1,237 yards and scored 18 touchdowns in 2002, his only collegiate season, says he was asked during the 2003 NCAA investigation whether he received a loaner car from Tressel, and, to protect the coach, he says, he answered no. He says when he was asked about other indiscretions, he answered, "I don't know" or "I don't remember," which was a violation of NCAA Rule 10.1, requiring forthright answers. "What would have become of Ohio State if I said everything?'' Clarett told The Magazine. "Half the team would have been suspended, and it would have been worse for everybody. I was like, 'Why don't I just take it?'" The school suspended him for the entire 2003 season, and when Clarett asked to be reinstated for 2004, he says the athletic department systematically "blackballed him" by taking away the teachers and tutors. Clarett then tried applying for the 2004 NFL Draft, and was first ruled eligible and then ineligible, because he wasn't the requisite three years removed from high school. He says he was "depressed" by the court's ultimate decision to ban him, but is now working out in anticipation of the 2005 draft in April. He says he is hoping this winter to play in this winter's East-West Shrine game and the Senior Bowl, all-star invitationals that would be his first football games in two years. Several pro executives say, as of now, the running back could go as low as the fourth or fifth round. Clarett contends he will change any negative perceptions at the NFL combine in February. "I'm thinking, 'NFL GMs know college players take money,' " Clarett says. "It was nothing like I stole something. Nothing like I'm running from the law or I'm dragging a girl down the stairs. No domestic violence. No nothing. [but] I got to clear myself up now, because it's affecting the minds of the GMs."
November 9, 200421 yr This probably happens at every major college football university in the country. I knew Tressel was a sleazeball though.
November 9, 200421 yr Author This probably happens at every major college football university in the country. I knew Tressel was a sleazeball though. 611526[/snapback] except IU... we have no playmakers
November 9, 200421 yr This probably happens at every major college football university in the country. I knew Tressel was a sleazeball though. 611526[/snapback] except IU... we have no playmakers 611531[/snapback] We just have walk-ons and 2 star players at Iowa
November 9, 200421 yr Damn its like that huh ! $1000 handshakes, cars, and im sure hookers, which the ladder is ok Is OSU gonna have an NCAA investigation, will there squeaky clean image be tarnished, is Clarrett's word enough for the NCAA to set up an investigation and put them on probabtion...this probably goes on in every MAJOR college football program but who would come out and sink the ship like Clarrett just did, they never should've singled him out
November 9, 200421 yr Dare i mention Andy Katzenmoyer who got AIDS class, music and Golf, in order to be ready for the football season....naturally he passed those bogus classes.
November 9, 200421 yr Dare i mention Andy Katzenmoyer who got AIDS class, music and Golf, in order to be ready for the football season....naturally he passed those bogus classes. 611584[/snapback] Those are tough academically challenging courses, they stimulate the mind and body...LOL That doesnt bother me too much, most of these guys are just mindless neanderthals
November 9, 200421 yr Yeah, I do not doubt that he got paid and all that stuff for a second. It sucks, but whatever. I know of two people personally that got paid to play and go to their respective colleges. Almost every school has done it.
November 9, 200421 yr Most of those major football powers like OSU have classes like Football 101 for the players.
November 9, 200421 yr Author Most of those major football powers like OSU have classes like Football 101 for the players. 611678[/snapback] here at IU we have football 101... anyone can take it
November 9, 200421 yr Most of those major football powers like OSU have classes like Football 101 for the players. 611678[/snapback] here at IU we have football 101... anyone can take it 611711[/snapback] Yeah yeah I know anyone can take it but they encourage the players to do so and its usually a joke class just like Jim Harrick Jrs' Basketball class down at UGA.
November 9, 200421 yr This probably happens at every major college football university in the country. I knew Tressel was a sleazeball though. 611526[/snapback] except IU... we have no playmakers 611531[/snapback] dont forget SMU.
November 10, 200421 yr Author This probably happens at every major college football university in the country. I knew Tressel was a sleazeball though. 611526[/snapback] except IU... we have no playmakers 611531[/snapback] dont forget SMU. 611757[/snapback] my bad
November 10, 200421 yr So quick to believe the word of a player quicked out of school and without much of a career right now. If the benefits were so good, why did he want ot make the NFL jump so quickly when it was not certain? I dont believe the word of a very troubled 20 year old this easily.
November 10, 200421 yr Before you believe this clown, please read this good read: What a shame. What a waste. It appears that time has finally run out on Maurice Clarett, who apparently was interested in using Ohio State as his vehicle to NFL riches but was never interested in doing what needed to be done to reach that point. Someone close to the situation told me last summer that there was something rotten about what was going on with Clarett. This person would never speak in specifics and always talked in generalities. That?s why I was never comfortable in sharing it with BSB?s readers. But I figure the genie is out of the bottle now, so what the heck? Clarett ran with the wrong crowd in his native Youngstown. That?s certainly nothing but immature misjudgment to which most of us can plead degrees of guilt at Clarett?s age. And the intrinsic ability to determine right from wrong can sometimes be clouded by what we perceive as friendship. Age and experience are usually the only teachers that hold our attention. But Clarett never seemed to learn from his mistakes. Early in his high school career, he showed up late for a team meal and proceeded to tell coach Thom McDaniels that it was no big deal. McDaniels benched him for two games. The first time he set foot in Ohio State?s locker room, Lydell Ross stuck out his hand to welcome his new teammate. Clarett just looked at it funny and said, ?I?m here to take your job.? After national television cameras caught his sideline pouting and dust-up with running backs coach Tim Spencer during last year?s Northwestern game, Clarett apologized ? but only after he was instructed to do so by head coach Jim Tressel. He accused Ohio State of being a football factory, caring only about making money off its athletes, at least twice last season. No apology. Then he called OSU athletic director Andy Geiger ?a liar? during Fiesta Bowl preparations when the university would not allow him to fly back home to attend the funeral of a friend. That ?friend,? by the way, was a mere acquaintance of Clarett?s whose dubious past apparently cost him his life. To be sure, Clarett grew up with neither wealth nor privilege. His hardscrabble roots cause him to be wary of anyone he doesn't know. He once said that he either has to know something bad about you or you have to know something bad about him for there to be a respectful relationship. The guarded demeanor served him well on the mean streets. It cost him dearly in the OSU locker room. Because of his aloof nature, Clarett's teammates began to shun him. When they approached him, he turned away. He wanted to be left alone and so they accommodated him. And although most of them continued to marvel at his football sense, they scratched their heads over his lack of common sense. In the Fiesta Bowl, he made several spectacular plays including a potential game-saver when he grabbed the football back from Miami after an interception. But during the national championship trophy celebration, where was Clarett? Not on the podium, helping to hoist the crystal football. He was standing on the periphery of the celebration muttering, ?When are we going home?? McDaniels, Tressel, Spencer, Geiger and a host of university staff members tried to get through to the star tailback in the off-season. But Clarett?s arrogant ignorance of the importance of the family-type atmosphere Tressel was trying to nurture seemed to dictate his every move. Apparently, he didn?t feel the need to take his academics seriously, and he felt he was outside the boundaries of rules set for everyone else. In a cruel twist of fate, it was Clarett?s ?borrowed ride? that got broken into out of all the vehicles sitting in the Woody Hayes Athletic Center parking lot. That incident perpetuated the downward spiral Clarett was already bent on following. And even then, Clarett had two more chances for contrition. He threw away the first when he stonewalled university investigators and the NCAA as they probed the allegations against him. Then he blew what appears to be his last chance when things were nearly at the resolution stage. Tressel and Geiger were in the process of dotting all of the I?s and crossing all of the T?s on the official response to the NCAA, a recommendation that we now believe would have called for an eight-game outright suspension and two more games of working back into the lineup. That would have meant that Clarett would have been reinstated as the starting tailback for the next-to-last regular-season game against Purdue and then been ready for monster games against Michigan and whoever the Buckeyes? postseason opponent would be. But he couldn?t leave well enough alone. What you already know are the well-reported incidents about parking his car in a stadium lot on the day of the Washington game ? an incident that apparently cost two parking lot attendants their jobs ? and appearing on ESPN?s College GameDay wearing his No. 13 jersey. What you may not know is that when Clarett finally made his way into the stadium locker room before the game, he was confronted by Spencer about not appearing at the WHAC and bussing to the game with his teammates. The result was another argument between position coach and player that reportedly became so heated that Tressel was forced to step between the two, after which he told Clarett to leave his uniform jersey in his locker. Three days later at his weekly press conference, Tressel announced Clarett would no longer practice with the team. Clarett?s actions that Saturday and reaction to Tressel?s announcement all but sealed his fate as a Buckeye. He has essentially given Geiger and Tressel no choice but to give up on him for the rest of the 2003 season, and when the university?s official recommendation is made to the NCAA, it will be made with no appeal for reinstatement this year.
November 10, 200421 yr Despite acing courses like Officiating Softball and Power Volleyball, Fred Sturrup (in car, left) became academically ineligible for 2001 and lost his scholarship. WTF Power Volleyball? Cooper is back at Ohio State, taking 10 credits a quarter and hoping to return to the team or to transfer. But transferring won't be easy. After Crosby became academically ineligible, he left in 2002 and spent two semesters at Columbus State CC. He then met with officials at Grambling, who saw a transcript that included Officiating Basketball and Officiating Tennis and denied nearly half of his credits. "What are they doing up there at Ohio State?" he says an adviser asked. :lol http://sports.espn.go.com/ncf/news/story?id=1919258
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