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Friday, August 11, 2006
Don’t cry for Clarett
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Tony Barnhart
I really don’t feel sorry for Maurice Clarett. But there is a lesson to be learned from his sad saga. If you’re the parent of a budding college athlete, it should scare the hell out of you.
As a freshman, Clarett scored the winning touchdown in the Fiesta Bowl that gave Ohio State the 2002 national championship. Today, less than four years later, he is being held on $5 million bond for a variety charges.
His self-absorption was evident from the day he walked onto the Ohio State campus. His year at Ohio State was marked with one incident after another which came from the same root: Clarett’s belief that his immense talent (and it was immense) put him above and beyond accountability to any societal structure. Not team, not university, not community.
As late as several days before the national championship game, Clarett was making headlines in Phoenix because the university wouldn’t fly him home to attend the funeral of a friend. His entire team was trying to get ready to play for a championship and the focus, once again, was on Clarett and HIS needs.
And when Ohio State finally gave up on Clarett, he demanded that the NFL change its entire structure on underclassmen to allow HIM access to the league. When the league refused, he lashed out as though a grave injustice had been done to HIM.
And today, Maurice Clarett gets far more media attention than he deserves for a promising life that was trashed at the twin altars of Ego and Arrogance.
Here’s the lesson if you’re the parent or a guardian of a potentially great athlete. Help them develop their immense talent but not to the exclusion of all else. Do not allow them to fall victim to the pathology born of the excesses of the celebrity/recruiting process. Remind him that while he may be a star on the athletic field, everywhere else he is still a kid and he had better act like it.
The sense of entitlement that this culture creates in young athletes can, in some cases, have some dire consequences down the road.
The chilling vision of Maurice Clarett in a bullet proof vest and handcuffs is living proof of that.
