Grantland.com :Maurice Clarett: A Life in Two Parts

[Hazel-Ra]

http://www.grantland.com/story/_/id/7088858/life-two-parts

This is the first of a two-part series by Maurice Clarett on his childhood, his high school years, and his experiences at Ohio State and beyond. Part 2 will run later this month.

When I was a young boy growing up, I had a dream like every kid. I never could imagine that what I was doing in the front yard would land me at Ohio State, the NFL, or in the UFL. I can remember using my toys as football players and playing games on my bedroom floor. I can remember playing team football with friends from around the neighborhood and emulating players we had seen on television. I remember watching guys like Earnest Byner, Thurman Thomas, Emmitt Smith, and Deion Sanders. I also remember getting on my knees and playing carpet football in my mother's living room with my brothers when I couldn't go outside. Lord knows she would have whupped us if she ever found out. Sorry, Moms.

My first memories of organized football came from my Little League football team. I started in 1989. Our team was called the Little Braves. Our colors were orange and blue. I loved every second on that team. My first position was strong safety. I don't remember if I got any playing time or not, I just remember coaches yelling and the players drumming beats on their pads as a way to pump us all up. I'm not sure if either the yelling or the beating on our thigh pads helped us on the field, but the adrenaline sure felt good.

Click Link for all of Part 1

Interesting read so far. It's ironic that a person could be so detail oriented on his future as he implies here, yet make such knucklehead mistakes. I put it in the Tailgate since he's not even current NFL. I hope I catch the lead for part two, because sometimes I have the attention span of a goldfish, and may miss it.

[Bang]

From things I've read in the past. Clarett had a lot of backing from some rather shady people, and they were to benefit when he hit the big money in the NFL.

When that didn't work out they threatened him and his family, and that is why we saw such baffling behavior,, public fights, gun charges, driving around with an arsenal..

I'll be interested to read the rest of this as well. Makes you wonder. If it happened to him, i wonder how many other players have such people pushing them?

~Bang

[PeterMP]

From things I've read in the past. Clarett had a lot of backing from some rather shady people, and they were to benefit when he hit the big money in the NFL.

When that didn't work out they threatened him and his family, and that is why we saw such baffling behavior,, public fights, gun charges, driving around with an arsenal..

I'll be interested to read the rest of this as well. Makes you wonder. If it happened to him, i wonder how many other players have such people pushing them?

~Bang

Well, this makes a LITTLE more sense then:

"In the early morning hours of August 9, 2006, Clarett was arrested in Columbus after he made an illegal U-turn and led the police on a chase in a sports utility vehicle reportedly belonging to his uncle. After Clarett drove over a police spike strip, the chase ended in a nearby restaurant parking lot.[23][24]

Police said they were forced to secure a cloth around Clarett's mouth after he allegedly spit at the officers and called them "******s" during the arrest. According to Columbus Police Sgt. Mike Woods, the officers discovered a katana, a zanbatō, a loaded AK-47 variant and two other loaded handguns in his vehicle along with an open bottle of Grey Goose vodka.[25] The police requested that the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives perform a trace on the firearms to determine if Clarett violated Federal gun laws.

The officers used mace to subdue Clarett after attempts to subdue him with a Taser proved ineffective because he was wearing Kevlar body armor."

I still don't understand the swords.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Clarett#August_2006_arrest

[Lombardi's_kid_brother]

I'm interested in Part II.

It makes you wonder how many great NFL players have been lost simply because there is this odd requirement that you spend three years in college first.

For whatever reason, baseball is capable of signing 15 year old Domincans who aren't literate in their native language, sending them to upstate New York to play baseball against grown men, and eventually having them grow into big lead players. But football has never completely mastered how to get an 18 year old from a housing project in Youngstown to the Browns.

Granted, Clarett seems like he had a lot more baggage than simply college being a bad fit. But he was basically cast adrift at 18 and told, "Call us in two years."