"It's the richest part of Columbus, downtown, but you're walking past bums and homeless people. This is wintertime, it's like 19 degrees down there. They're sleeping in boxes and little covers. It don't make any sense to me."
Maybe you should read his words and answer that one for yourself. But, to be liberal about it, you could call him naive and stupid. But then you'd have to add "brainwashed socialist in training".
Bill Livingston
Clarett disrupts OSU fiesta
01/01/03
Phoenix
- Maybe they all are just meat on the hoof. Maurice Clarett, his eyes far older than his 19 years, sees it that way.
"I'm not going to sit here and let them lie about it. I filled out the papers [a Free Application For Federal Student Aid form, or FAFSA] before we left Columbus Dec. 26. They didn't tell you that,' " Clarett said yesterday.
This has become a series of charges and counter-charges about paperwork that was or was not filed, which kept Ohio State's stellar freshman running back from attending the funeral two days ago of a high-school friend who was shot to death in Youngstown. Ohio State officials say whatever Clarett filled out, it wasn't the form the NCAA's rules mandarins require. Clarett said his family lacks the money to buy him a ticket home, for which OSU would have reimbursed him quickly.
Buckeye players Will Smith and Chris Vance returned to New York and Florida, respectively, for funerals during the season. OSU officials say their papers were in order.
Asked if the flap had changed the "affection" he felt for Ohio State, Clarett said: "I never had any affection for Ohio State. I went there to get an education and play football."
Education was not the focal point of Clarett's midseason interview with ESPN: The Magazine, though. In that cover story, he discussed a legal challenge to the NFL rule preventing collegians from turning pro until their admission class has reached junior-year status.
Clarett might be another Robert Smith, the Ohio State running back of the early 1990s from Euclid.
Smith quit the team for a season in a dispute with an assistant coach who, charged Smith, interfered with his right to become Doogie Howser, M.D., by making him douse the dorm lights rather than pour over weighty tomes as a pre-med major. But Smith turned pro as soon as he could and did not get his degree. He might have won a Heisman Trophy, had he stayed. A number of OSU officials were glad to be spared the headaches he caused them.
Many questions arise in the Clarett case, not the least of which is the lack of official concern that Juaquin "Juan" Bell, the murdered friend, was shot multiple times and drugs were found at the crime scene.
Clarett has changed the discourse at the Fiesta Bowl. Before, the Buckeyes were lying in the tumbleweeds, a 13-point underdog against Miami, feeding off the nation's disrespect for them. But now, OSU is the unfeeling football factory, trampling on a kid from the hardscrabble streets of Youngstown.
When Clarett mentioned the $14 million payout at the Fiesta Bowl, it was in implicit contrast to the $1,000 or so it would have cost to fly him back for the funeral. But that's a curious argument, because Clarett hates to fly. It was an issue with him repeatedly during the season.
Also, Bell was killed on Dec. 21, but Clarett said he only found out about the funeral arrangements on Dec. 26. Again, for such close friends, it's curious.
Clarett's charges strike at the core of the "22 Musketeers" attitude coach Jim Tressel has fostered. "Coach Tressel and my teammates care about me. As for the university, I don't know," Clarett said.
Clarett would do well to have a good game Friday. The fan backlash to the ESPN: The Magazine story made him stop reading e-mails. OSU fans just wanted to have a healthy Clarett, recovered from his shoulder injury, here to test the Hurricanes. They have him now, and that's the problem.
To reach this Plain Dealer reporter:
blivingston@plaind.com, 216-999-5754