Pass The Word: Victim or Knucklehead?

The befuddling arrest of Maurice Clarett last Wednesday evening in Columbus, and his morning-after khaki-clad court appearance, caused just about everyone to ponder and debate the question. Clarett, the former star running back at Ohio State, was found with four guns (a loaded assault rifle among them) in his car, along with a bottle of vodka. Not a good mixture. He was also wearing a Kevlar, aka bulletproof, vest. All that does not spell "heading to Dairy Queen." At least not for a hot fudge sundae.

Clarett was about to stand trial on the charge of aggravated assault stemming from an equally bizarre incident in which he was accused of accosting a couple in an alley in Columbus on January 1, and demanding money while also taking a cell phone. That trial has now been postponed to mid-September and Clarett has been ordered to have a psychological evaluation.

Ya think??!!

The image is passing deeper and deeper into brain cell oblivion, but I still recall watching Clarett, then a dazzling freshman starring for his hometown team, score the TD that gave the Buckeyes the 2002 national title. I was sharing the evening with friends over cigars and libations and the game lived up to our effort. Since then the only thing we've shared with regard to Clarett is utter disbelief at the depth of his fall.

Well, not absolute disbelief. In fact, if there was ever a coulda-seen-it-coming crash and burn, thy name was Maurice Clarett. His over-inflated sense of self-first reared its ugliness when he hinted as a freshman that he'd leave college after his sophomore season and join the NFL. Never mind that - right or wrong - he wouldn't be eligible for the NFL Draft at that juncture. He just wasn't that good.

Then the train wreck commenced. The forged police report. The lies to the NCAA. The ill-fated challenge to the NFL's draft policy. The menagerie of folks ranging from his mom to Jim Brown to Jesse Jackson all weighing in on what was right for Maurice Clarett, even while they were all wrong.

There was the slow-footed 40 at the NFL combine. And finally, the blown opportunity after being selected in the third round of the 2005 draft by the benevolent Denver Broncos. Clarett was out of shape and full of himself. Bronco coach Mike Shanahan told reporters this week that Clarett, when he should have been a sponge for encouragement and insight, didn't want to hear anything from anyone. He was, said Shanahan, "a guy not wanting that help."

Victim or Knucklead?

This is clear: Maurice Clarett embodies the intestinal by-product of a system flawed at its core.

Sure our bio-industrial sports complex - from the Littlest Leagues through College Inc, and into the cash-strewn promised land of the pros - is Darwinian and only the strongest, fittest and best reach the highest levels of achievement and income, all while their teams and leagues reap the rewards. But the system should do more for those cast aside before reaching a goal that was likely too high from the start.

I won't bore you with another call for better graduation rates or for parents to stop burdening their kids with trying to make millions to overcome their own failed lives or for everyone along a young athlete's journey to at least once tell them what they need to hear rather than what they want to hear. But hear this: The least among those chasing fruitless dreams should not end up on SportsCenter clad in an khaki jumpsuit

So, yes, Clarett is a victim of all that. But I'm not one to buy the victimization rap. Not here. Not for all young athletes. Not for all young black athletes.

And as hard as it is every day not to blame someone, anyone, for all that doesn't go as I would like, I try very hard not to accept it in my own life, either. (Big emphasis on "try.")

We all make choices. Some bear much fruit; others make us sick. Or worse. Either way, they're our choices and we're accountable for them. Almost every day I tell my kids: Life gets easy when you do the hard things first. (Hey, I'm still waiting on the "easy" part, but you get what I'm trying to impart to them.)

I'm not sure anyone ever told Maurice Clarett.

Seems he just didn't do hard. At Ohio State, he didn't think team first, Maurice second. Too hard.

When talking to police, he didn't tell the truth. Too hard.

He didn't work out when that was all he had to do. Too hard.

He didn't listen to potential Bronco teammates and coaches when they offered sound advice on how to get what they already had. Too hard.

He was, after all, too talented, too gifted, too big, strong and fast to do hard.

Except when he fell.

Accounts from some who spoke to Clarett on the same night he would later be arrested, including Tom Friend of ESPN the Magazine, offered a beguiling portrait of a young man who just might have been ready to do hard. He told Friend he was about to come clean, that he was going to tell the public in a scheduled radio interview that he alone was accountable for all his actions and was ready to accept the consequences. He had recently made amends with his college coach, Jim Tressel and seemed genuinely moved by the recent premature birth of his daughter.

It seemed Maurice Clarett had finally found hard. Then hard found him.

Victim? No more than any of us.

Knucklehead? Maybe a bit harsh. But Maurice Clarett made choices. Bad choices. Lots of them. That's all on him.

Various reports stated police used Mace to subdue Clarett and that the former star tried kicking his way out of the police vehicle en route to the station.

Lord knows how hard it's going to get for Clarett now.

Here's hoping that perhaps now he'll find "easy." Some day.