national champs baby
Maurice Clarett
Maurice Clarett confirms what we all already knew about Ohio State
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There is an article on Deadspin today about a new book entitled4th and Goal:One Man's quest to capture his dream written by Forbes writer Monte Burke. The subject of the book is Joe Moglia, former CEO of TD Ameritrade who gave up his lofty position to become a football coach for the Omaha Nighthawks.
The excerpt included on Deadspin is centered around Clarett, and his path through life (including high school, his time as a student at Ohio State in Columbus, and the crazy turns his life took afterwards. It is quite a tale, and interesting, even without the Buckeye schadenfreude.
The money shot (at least for me) was this gem:
He was a hard worker in practice and in games. But off the field, he was living a completely different life. "I took golf, fishing, and softball as classes," Clarett says. "Away from class, anything you can think of I did in my 13 months at Ohio State." Drugs and women were two of the things. Cars were another—he owned three of them at a time, including a brand-new Cadillac and Lexus. "I was living the NFL life in college," he says. "I got paid more in college than I do now in the UFL.
Here is the link, for anyone who is interested:
http://deadspin.com/5967649/how-maurice-clarett-lost-his-way-bombed-out-...
OT - Sports Agent Tell All Book Excerpt (Maurice Clarett)
This is seriously laugh out loud funny. Yahoo Sports is running an excerpt from “Illegal Procedure: A Sports Agent Comes Clean on the Dirty Business of College Football” by former sports agent Josh Luchs.
Luchs was a sports agent from 1990-2008 before being suspended by the NFL Players Association. He wrote a cover story for Sports Illustrated in October 2010 shining a light on the secret payments and deal-making that exist in college football. This excerpt details his work with former Ohio State running back Maurice Clarett leading up to the 2005 NFL combine.
My favorite vignette is when Luchs brings in a representive from the Shriners to try to convince Clarett to play in the East-West Shrine Game since Clarett's stated desire of playing in the Senior Bowl was impossible.
He’d been living with an Israeli Larry Flynt for months, absorbing the house culture, operating by the house rules. Maurice had seen that every Friday night, when the sun went down, no matter what they were doing, all work ended. Hai, his entourage and his family lit candles and said their evening prayers. So, at that moment, when the discussion wasn’t going his way, Maurice suddenly stood up and said, “This meeting is over. It’s Shabbat.” He walked out of the room.
Jack turned to me and said, “What’s he talking about?” I said, “I have no idea. Today is Wednesday.” I rode with Jack to the airport, apologizing, and he was very understanding.
Maurice Clarett writes for grantland
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Interesting article written by Clarett chronicalling his life up through high school. Its part of a two part series with college life to come. Its a pretty interesting piece and Clarett comes off as pretty intelligent. he seems to have turned his life around to some degree so good for him.
I thought [Clarett] was enrolling at Ohio St
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Maurice Clarett tries to go Semi Pro or Pro as in getting paid to play, again
Well I guess people deserve a second chance
Was Maurice Clarett right?
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There was a post that devolved into a discussion of the of NFL Draft eligibility rules about a week ago. As I was the person who was largely responsible, I decided to examine Maurice Clarett's situation more closely. Enjoy.
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NFL eligibility rules, like those of the NCAA, can be a contentious issue. This is likely because, regardless of whether we agree or disagree with a rule, the rules are somewhat arbitrary. Since we’re discussing Maurice Clarett here, I’m going to discuss the NFL’s policy that players must be three years removed from high school graduation in order to enter the NFL draft—in other words, they must have completed their Redshirt Sophomore or true Junior season in college football. Clarett challenged that rule in federal court in 2004, where he first was successful in the Southern District—whose ruling was then reversed by the Second Circuit Court of Appeals.
I want to emphasize that I am not a lawyer, and while the lawyers out there are free to destroy my argument and pick apart my almost certainly incorrect usage of legal terminology, that doesn’t necessarily mean my viewpoint is without validity. As a reference for the legal issues, I’ve used a summary of the case, which is available at the bottom of the page.
This is a topic I feel very strongly about. To me, it’s appalling that an adult who is highly qualified for a job is prevented from pursuing that job simply based on his age. Make no mistake; waiting three years after high school is essentially another way of requiring that NFL players be 20-21 years old on draft day. Of course, for me to be upset in this case, I must assume that Clarett and Mike Williams would have been drafted (or at least signed as an undrafted free agent) by an NFL team in that draft. Both were drafted the next year, so I think it’s safe to assume they would have been drafted the season in question.
My argument isn't about what’s best for the fans, or even for the players, it’s about what should or shouldn’t be legal. I would love every college player to stay in school for four seasons. I primarily follow the college game, and the game’s great players are a significant part of why the college game is, to me, the best sport in the world. However, is it acceptable for the government to allow a private entity to not allow an adult to work in a profession he is clearly capable of pursuing? I’m not saying the NFL had to draft Clarett and give him a huge signing bonus, but they essentially prevented him from even applying for a job, despite having met all non age-related qualifications. I’m going to examine if my argument is valid, and whether it’s reasonable to disagree with the court decision the allowed the NFL to deny Clarett entrance into the draft.
Clarett’s lawyers argued that the NFL’s Collective Bargaining Agreement violated various anti-trust acts by denying eligibility for employment to players “who had not first exhausted all college football eligibility, graduated from college, or been out of high school for five football seasons. Clubs were further barred from drafting any person who either did not attend college, or attended college but did not play football, unless that person had been out of high school for four football seasons.” The NFL Commissioner was authorized to admit players via “Special Eligibility,” provided three years of college football had elapsed—these are early entrants to the draft.
The initial case in the Southern District essentially ruled that the Clarett had anti-trust standing; holding that the “’inability to compete in the market’ for NFL players' services is sufficient injury for antitrust purposes.” The Southern District also found that the NFL’s eligibility rules were “blatantly anticompetitive” in ruling in Clarett’s favor. The NFL argued that younger players were less emotionally and physically mature, and therefore more likely to fail at the NFL level. They further argued that younger athletes may attempt to rush their body’s maturation by taking steroids, etc. These are logical arguments that I’d expect the NFL to make here.
Obviously, the <?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />Appeals Court disagreed with the lower court's ruling. Their discussion opens by stating, “It has long been recognized that in order to accommodate the collective bargaining process, certain concerted activity among and between labor and employers must be held to be beyond the reach of the antitrust laws.” This allows unions and employers to negotiate work rules together in good faith—the so-called anti-trust exemption. This is called a “non-statutory exemption,” which is inferred "from federal labor statutes, which set forth a national labor policy favoring free and private collective bargaining; which require good-faith bargaining over wages, hours, and working conditions; and which delegate related rulemaking and interpretive authority to the National Labor Relations Board."
The Appeals Court systematically struck down each of Clarett’s arguments based on past court rulings and federal labor law. According to federal labor law, rules for initial eligibility are required in the collective bargaining process, and may make eligibility more difficult for outside parties, which can be used by unions to protect their workers. Unlike the Southern District, the Appeals Court granted the NFL a non-statutory exemption and allowed them to deny Clarett’s entry into the draft.
The discussion above is what happened during the process. Clearly, assuming that the appointed members of the federal court system are accomplished jurists—which is likely the case—intelligent people can disagree here. I found it interesting that age was not mentioned once in the case summary. When Clarett initially challenged the NFL, I thought it would be a simple case that would immediately fall in Clarett’s favor. He was an adult, and it’s illegal to deny someone a job due to age, which I contend is a clear consequence of the time removed from high school eligibility rules. I was wrong. The Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) states on its website that only workers over the age of forty are protected by age discrimination provisions of federal employment law. That is clearly why age wasn’t mentioned, however, I’m surprised that was not challenged, especially due to the perishable nature of NFL level football ability.
I’m not going to delve too deeply into the morality issue in this diary. I obviously fall on the side of allowing an adult to apply for a job he is qualified for, but many others on the board do not in the case of pro football. I also feel it would have been right for the NFL to allow Mike Williams and Maurice Clarett in under some sort of special exemption. They did win the initial case, and were forced to spend a year in limbo waiting to be drafted—which may have contributed to Clarett’s eventual problems. Had he been able to remain in the very structured environment of organized football, those problems may have been mitigated or never appeared.
Feel free to debate below, but apparently, Maurice Clarett, and I, was wrong based on federal law. Hopefully it was an interesting read.
http://ftp.resource.org/courts.gov/c/F3/369/369.F3d.124.04-0943.html
From SI: Clarett seeks early release
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Maurice Clarett Seeks Early Release
Seriously, Maurice? Still hoping for a football career? Maybe you should mug somebody for their common sense next time?
