i refuse to pay for what once was free..
Still single eh?
Including the coach part sounds a bit irresponsible to me. That 'whispers' continue could refer to nothing more than irresponsible rumors. If he knows there is something to the whispers he should say that.
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One year later, star player, OSU clear casualties of ‘Clarett thing’
Wednesday, July 14, 2004
ROB OLLER
A year has passed. So where’s the book? It would be an instant best seller. Especially in Ann Arbor. The requisite dirt is all there: lies, betrayal and finger-pointing. Damning phone records, suggestions of secret meetings and interoffice shouting matches. Sources in the shadows. Even a break-in.
Are you listening, Bob Woodward?
To top it off, at least one chapter on Jim Brown, who always makes for good copy.
Yesterday marked the one-year anniversary of the first official domino to fall in what has come to be called "The Clarett thing."
Last July 13, The New York Times reported that Maurice Clarett — you remember him, the former Ohio State tailback who was big news before Jim O’Brien pushed him off the front page — had received preferential treatment in one of his college courses.
Now some of you might be thinking, "Duh," the implication that a famous college football player would receive extra help ranks up there with "Dog bites man."
In this case, however, Clarett was the pit bull who dared to rip a chunk of flesh from Ohio State athletics department officials — otherwise known by Clarett as "that bunch of liars" — when he accused them of caring more about his field vision than his feelings.
The Times article left that touchy subject alone, but Clarett’s antipathy toward Ohio State higher-ups, and the school’s aversion to most things involving MC, would make for juicy reading in this tell-all book. If nothing else, the fiasco at the Fiesta Bowl, when Clarett chided OSU for not flying him home to attend the funeral of a friend, made the infighting much more public — and personal.
Some believe those Clarett rantings sealed his doom, that he already had made enemies within the athletics department after an ugly confrontation with compliance director Heather Lyke Catalano during a fact-finding meeting that took place during the 2002 season. After that, Clarett was not going to catch a break.
Starting last July 13, neither would Ohio State.
Twelve months later, despite an internal investigation that turned up nary an ounce of academic wrongdoing within the university, the Buckeyes remain stained by the newspaper story.
The intent of the article remains open to debate — expose wrongdoing or demolish a football factory? — but the fallout seems clear. Ohio State football no longer is considered a squeaky-clean program.
Of course, some never thought it was — whispers continue that a coach at another Big Ten school planted seeds that eventually were sown into the story — but the Buckeyes had always managed to sidestep the kind of huge controversies that landed schools such as Oklahoma and Miami in hot water over the years.
Now, Ohio State knows how those schools must have felt while their reputations were being dragged through the mud.
The Times story burned Clarett, too.
If not for the article, Clarett’s camp believes he would have played for the Buckeyes at least part of last season and would still be playing for them.
"Maurice would never have missed (the 2003 season)," said Vince Marrow, Clarett’s cousin from Columbus who has helped counsel the player since his arrival at OSU in the spring of 2002. "It started out that he was to miss two weeks of training camp (in spring 2003), then when the New York Times story came out, even if the NCAA and Andy Geiger had wanted to go about disciplining Maurice differently, there’s no way they could. It would look like a slap on the wrist."
Geiger, the Ohio State athletics director, maintains that Clarett hurt himself by lying to police, athletics officials and NCAA investigators regarding the police report involving a break-in and theft of electronics equipment from a loaner car he was test-driving in April 2003.
Though that is mostly true, it can’t be overlooked that Ohio State failed to keep a close enough eye on its most controversial player. If there’s one lesson to be learned from the last year, it’s that not all football players are created equal. Superstars do require closer monitoring than the third-string punter. That might not be fair, but it’s fact. The Times does not send a reporter to town if the Buckeyes’ backup long snapper walks out of a test.
It is hoped that Clarett also has learned at least one important lesson: think before you speak.
That strategy won’t sell books, but it helps keep you out of them.
Rob Oller is a sports reporter for The Dispatch.
