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RB Maurice Clarett (B1G Freshman of the Year, National Champion)

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Maurice Clarett Radio Interview

Jones, Clarett talk to rookies about life off the playing field
Published Wednesday, June 26, 2013

BEREA (AP) ? The money can disappear, the fame can vanish. This week, NFL rookies are being reminded that the game?s hardest knocks often happen off the field.

During the league?s annual Rookie Symposium, first-year players are getting a crash course into everything that goes into being a professional athlete ? the good, and the bad. The NFL wants its newest members to be prepared not only for what awaits them this season, but for the years ahead, especially those days when they?re no longer making big paychecks or big plays.

Through various educational seminars, candid, sometimes heartbreaking speeches and panel discussions, players are learning the X?s and O?s of life.

?It?s a great opportunity for us to be out here learning from players who?ve been here, been in our shoes and who are where we want to be,? said San Diego Chargers linebacker Manti Te?o, the former Notre Dame star who this year was the target of a hoax involving a fake girlfriend. ?As we get into the next phase of our lives, it?s a new phase, something we?re not used to, so to keep our circle small and remember the people who have always been there for you.?

The AFC?s rookie class arrived in Aurora, Ohio, on Sunday to begin the four-day session, which the league has constructed as a teaching and bonding experience. The NFC rookies arrive Wednesday and stay through Sunday.

On Monday, players attended a seminar titled: ?Are You Bigger Than The Game?? that featured Cincinnati cornerback Adam ?Pacman? Jones and former Ohio State star running back Maurice Clarett as speakers.

Jones recently pleaded not guilty to a misdemeanor assault charge and has had other off-the-field issues that led to league suspensions. He talked frankly about his many errors and warned players about them.

?He?s always been a guy who has preached don?t do the same mistakes he?s done,? said New York Jets rookie quarterback Geno Smith, who knows Jones because both played at West Virginia. ?He?s made a lot of mistakes in his career, but he?s a guy who is still standing strong and still working hard. He?s using his past trials and tribulations to try and help us.?

Because Jones is still an active player and Clarett?s story is well documented, their messages resonated with the young players.

?Growing up, those were the role models of their era,? Steelers linebacker Jarvis Jones said. ?Great players, tremendous players. Just to see where they?re at it in life now and the things they?ve been through, it opened our eyes because we?re no different from nobody else.

?For me, I always try to surround myself with positive people. I don?t do nothing negative, man. I can make the best decisions for me and my family and my team as well. What stuck out to me was just some of the decisions that they made, clearly it was caused by them just not thinking about it before they made it.?

Clarett urged the players to stay straight. His promising pro career was derailed by legal troubles not long after he helped lead the Buckeyes to their first national title in 34 years. Clarett wound up serving 3 1-2 years in prison.

?His story was really deep,? said Tennessee guard Chance Warmack while taking a break from teaching area school kids some football basics on the Browns? practice fields. ?He and Pacman reminded us there are obstacles you have to deal with as a professional and the standards you?ve got to hold yourself to because we?re not like everybody else.?
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- See more at: http://www.irontontribune.com/2013/...e-off-the-playing-field/#sthash.EOcEfbJ8.dpuf

Wrong crowd can tackle NFL players
Alex Marvez
Share This Story
Updated Jun 26, 2013

Maurice Clarett thought he had friends.

Plenty of folks wanted to hang with Clarett when he was a star running back at Ohio State University who was later drafted by the Denver Broncos. The good times ended in 2006. Clarett was convicted of an armed robbery that police say involved two acquaintances.

Clarett was asked by FOX Sports how many of the same people he once associated with came to visit during his 3?-year prison sentence.

?None of them,? Clarett said in a Thursday telephone interview.

?Those guys just continued living their life. They took their behavior to the next person and wherever the next party was going on. It lets you know how naive I was in my relationships.?

Clarett, 29, will share his cautionary tale at this week?s NFL Rookie Symposium in Aurora, Ohio. He hopes a new crop of young players can avoid the same mistake of socializing with those who care more about enjoying the ancillary benefits that come from athletic stardom than their personal well-being.

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http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/story/...ray-lewis-wrong-crowd-can-doom-players-062013
 
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Maurice Clarett talks mental illness, promotes Medicaid expansion



THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH Wednesday August 28, 2013
Adam Cairns | Dispatch Former Ohio State running back Maurice Clarrett speaks about his battles with mental illness during a rally in support of Medicaid
expansion in Ohio.

Among the supporters? Former Ohio State phenom running back Maurice Clarett.

Clarett, part of the 2002 National Championship team, had numerous off-the-field troubles, including robbery and weapons convictions that put him in prison. He has since been treated for depression.

"Mental illness is a stigma. At Ohio State, it was an excusing behavior I was in denial about," Clarett said.

Clarett said when he takes his medication, it gives him a chance to live his life.

“Everyone deserves that,” he said adding that he believes the best way he can help is by sharing his story.

“(As) somebody who has been to prison…and to crawl out and get my life back together, to know the fundamental reasons or principles of why the way I am now just means a lot to me personally,” he said. “And the people that shared their stories (today), I felt them and understood it and I could identify with them.”

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http://www.dispatch.com/content/sto...on.html?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
 
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ESPN "30 for 30" film on Maurice Clarett and Jim Tressel called "Youngstown Boys" to air on Dec. 14
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Jim Tressel and Maurice Clarett shared the stage during the OSU Alumni Club of Greater Cleveland Football Banquet last November, and now they'll be featured together in an ESPN "30 for 30" film to air on Dec. 14. (Lisa DeJong, The Plain Dealer)
By Doug Lesmerises, Northeast Ohio Media Group
October 07, 2013


COLUMBUS, Ohio - Jim Tressel and Maurice Clarett are back together -- at least on your television screens.

As part of its "30 for 30" series, ESPN will air a movie on the former Ohio State coach and running back on Dec. 14. Called "Youngstown Boys," Clarett wrote on his Twitter account Monday that the film will be broadcast after the Heisman Trophy ceremony.

On its "30 for 30" website, ESPN described the film as "The interconnected journey and evolving relationship of two former Ohio State stars -- RB Maurice Clarett and coach Jim Tressel."

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http://www.cleveland.com/osu/index.ssf/2013/10/espn_30_for_30_on_maurice_clar.html
 
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Lost stories of LeBron, part 2
Maurice and LeBron: one destined for Greatness, the other became The King
Originally Published: October 18, 2013
By Pablo S. Torre | ESPN The Magazine
mag_lebron-trilogyII01jr_576.jpg
C
Courtesy of Maurice Clarett
The friendship between James (center) and Maurice Clarett (right) seemed fated.
This story appears in ESPN The Magazine's Oct. 28 NBA Preview.

BEFORE MAURICE CLARETT ever won a BCS championship, after-partied with 50 Cent, warred with the NCAA, sued the NFL and spent three and a half years in jail for aggravated robbery and carrying a concealed weapon, he watched a basketball game with LeBron James' mother.

On Feb. 17, 2002, Clarett, an early enrollee at Ohio State, drove from Columbus to Youngstown State with no ticket and no plan. The star tailback, USA Today's high school offensive player of the year, knew that the NBA's future No. 1 pick was barnstorming through Clarett's hometown. What the 18-year-old did not anticipate was finding just one open seat among 6,500 in the Beeghly Center: down there, courtside, to the right of a cheering woman he'd never seen before.

Gloria James and Maurice Clarett would become acquainted soon enough. The former -- whose 17-year-old was on that week's cover of Sports Illustrated -- wondered why locals kept approaching this 5'11" kid for autographs. The latter -- who obliged every request with his self-appointed sobriquet, The Greatest of All Time -- noted that this lady kept calling LeBron her "baby." Introductions were made, parallels were drawn. At the buzzer, Clarett was whisked into the St. Vincent-St. Mary locker room for a summit with Gloria's son.

What ridiculous luck.

As it turned out, Akron's Chosen One -- in his free time a nigh-unstoppable prep receiver -- had heard all about The Greatest: the 300-yard games, the 10 yards a carry, the 30 touchdowns in a season at Warren G. Harding High. The pair of Ohioans, born one year and 50 miles of I-76 apart, swapped numbers, pledging to reunite. "We were two young guys from the hood," Clarett says. "We grew up in single-parent homes. We had success we'd never seen ourselves having. We were happy being around the best."

No, their backgrounds weren't mirror images: Clarett's youth had jagged edges -- he was sent to a Youngstown juvenile-detention center for fighting, breaking and entering, and auto theft -- while a circle of male role models had stepped in to insulate and center LeBron after a fourth-grade year of constant instability. But this friendship seemed fated, historic. Soon, LeBron proudly announced to reporters that the two were talking "every day.

Take June 8, 2002, when James broke his left wrist in a hard fall in AAU ball, imperiling his senior football season. This was no minor injury, and LeBron actually loved the gridiron more than the hardwood. Yet the brazen Clarett -- who'd committed to OSU by cold-calling then-head coach Jim Tressel and saying, "I'm coming to your school. This is Maurice Clarett" -- couldn't resist sending a mischievous get-well text: Man, leave football to me.

LeBron obliged, even doing his friend one better: He happily left college to Clarett too.

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http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/9...s-drastically-different-futures-espn-magazine
 
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One got lucky and had a good enough support group around him... the other was complete opposite and had the worst influence group 'supporting' him.. sad...

One can only wonder if he had the support of ... say.. Shazier or Spence families.. (selected only because I've seen family stories most recently) what could have been
 
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Posted by Jennifer Cingari on November 14, 2013

ESPN Announces Next 30 for 30 Documentary, Youngstown Boys

Film directed by The Two Escobars filmmakers Jeff and Michael Zimbalist

Following a successful fall slate of documentaries, ESPN Films will debut a new 30 for 30 on Saturday, December 14, at 9 p.m. ET on ESPN after the Heisman Trophy Presentation. Youngstown Boys is directed by Jeff and Michael Zimbalist, known for their 2010 30 for 30 documentary The Two Escobars, which was an official selection of the Tribeca Film Festival, Cannes International Film Festival and Los Angeles Film Festival.

Youngstown Boys explores class and power dynamics in college sports through the parallel, interconnected journeys of one-time dynamic running back Maurice Clarett and former elite head coach Jim Tressel. Both emerged from the working-class city of Youngstown, Ohio—Tressel as the head coach who turned around the football program at Youngstown State—before they joined for a magical season at Ohio State University in 2002 that produced the first national football championship for the school in over 30 years.

Shortly thereafter though, Clarett was suspended from college football and began a downward spiral that ended with a prison term. Tressel continued at Ohio State for another eight years before his career there also ended in scandal.

“Consistently referenced as one of the best documentaries of the last several years in or out of sports, The Two Escobars is the gold standard of what we do,” said Connor Schell, vice president of ESPN Films. “Jeff and Michael Zimbalist have delivered that level of excellence again with Youngstown Boys. In this film, their distinct style and storytelling are matched with two of college football’s most complicated figures of the last decade. We are honored to be showcasing this film in college football’s premiere timeslot.”

Youngstown Boys features interviews from Clarett and Tressel, as well as Pro Football Hall of Famer Jim Brown and former Ohio State QB Craig Krenzel.

“At its core, the story of Maurice Clarett and Jim Tressel is about fathers and sons, said co-director Jeff Zimbalist. “In addition to their record-breaking exploits on the playing field and involvement in two of college football’s biggest backroom scandals, we were drawn to the layered saga of ‘The Senator’ and ‘The Beast’ because it transcends sport. In examining the interconnected rise and downfall of these two men from opposite sides of the Youngstown tracks, we discovered the deep role that family plays in any quest for greatness.”
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http://espnmediazone.com/us/press-r...s-next-30-for-30-documentary-youngstown-boys/
 
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