Like a zombie punching its fist through the soil on a stormy night, former Ohio State running back Maurice Clarett reemerged from isolation in an interview in a story appearing in ESPN The Magazine released on ESPN’s Web site yesterday.
Clarett was suspended by Ohio State in 2003 for violating NCAA rules. He later challenged NFL rules in federal court in an attempt to enter the NFL draft after only one year of college football.
Clarett said he “took the fall” for OSU during a 2003 NCAA investigation and that he received cash, cars and excessive academic assistance during his time in Columbus. Five other former players including Marco Cooper and Sammy Maldonado are also quoted in the story.
OSU Director of Athletics Andy Geiger issued a stern series of denials yesterday afternoon after coach Jim Tressel’s usual Tuesday press luncheon.
“There was an exhaustive, thorough investigation conducted by the department of athletics and the NCAA into Maurice Clarett’s career at Ohio State,” Geiger said. “I have full confidence in Coach Tressel. I think he’s done a marvelous job leading our program. I believe in his values.”
Clarett said he was asked by Tressel to “take the fall” for OSU during the NCAA’s investigation.
“I was trying to protect Coach Tressel, the boosters and everybody,” he said in the story.
Geiger did not comment on that specific charge but did not hesitate to question Clarett’s credibility.
“I would remind you that the lead individual involved in this story had 17 areas of violation of (NCAA) bylaw 10, which is ethical behavior and clearly that behavior continues.”
Clarett also described a process in which Tressel allegedly helped Clarett purchase a car so he could get back and forth from his residence 15 minutes from campus.
“My transmission blew in my car … So I’m like ‘Coach Tressel, I can’t get back and forth to campus,'” Clarett said in the article. “(Tressel) gets on the phone and says this is where I get my car from. He called the man from McDaniel Automotive. He’s like, ‘I got a player here, Maurice Clarett. He needs a car. Do you have a car out there he could use.”
According to the article, Clarett switched between numerous cars, including a Ford Expedition and a Chevrolet Tahoe.
NCAA rules specifically prohibit coaches, boosters or other athletic officials from providing a college athlete with use of a car.
Geiger said Tressel did not break any rules regarding that car, that it had been part of the NCAA investigation and that he merely helped Clarett choose a dealership where Clarett and his family could purchase a car.
“Coach Tressel lined him up with a car from McDaniel Automotive in Marion, Ohio. I happens to be Jim Tressel’s car dealer. He gets a car from that company and so do I, in fact,” Geiger said. “Maurice and his mother were supposed to show up at the car dealership or some place to make an arrangement to buy the car. They failed to show, and McDaniel, after eight or nine or 10 days, I forget what the date was, had to come down to the Woody Hayes facility and repossess the car.”
When subsequently asked if that was okay under NCAA rules, Geiger said, “Sure, it was all part of the NCAA investigation. I was all part of what we disclosed.”
Clarett also said that OSU staff and specifically running backs coach Dick Tressel (brother of Jim) helped him find phony jobs, including one with an undisclosed landscaping company that didn’t actually involve much work.
After declining to talk to reporters yesterday afternoon, Jim Tressel issued a statement to the media later in the day.
“I have read the story that appeared … on ESPN.com. I can say without any reservations that all the allegations made against me in the story are totally false,” he said in the statement. “Additionally, I have spoken to Dick Tressel and the allegations directed towards, as the mentor of our summer jobs program, also are false.”
Clarett also said he was connected by Tressel to various boosters and friends who would give him cash, and that his academic help was somehow ended after he was suspended in the summer of 2003. He said he was no longer allowed to schedule classes he wanted or get time with tutors.
Clarett said he was funneled into an academic program designed to simply keep him eligible for intercollegiate athletics and his “classes were all independent study.”
Geiger said Clarett had only been enrolled in one independent study program and that only professors, not academic advisers or athletic department officials, could enroll him in independent study programs.
Clarett also said when he asked an academic adviser what classes he should take, the adviser responded, “Maurice, you have to sign up for your own schedule now.” Clarett said he tried to schedule an African-American and African studies class with a teacher he knew, but that the professor had been told by “a higher power” to “blackball” him from the course.
“It’s simply not true,” Geiger said. “He got lots of support and help and advice from the appropriate people at the university.”
Marco Cooper was also quoted in the story corroborating some of Clarett’s claims. Cooper was kicked off the football team in ___ after being arrested in Columbus and convicted of carrying a concealed weapon and aggravated possession of drugs.
Sammy Maldonado transferred from OSU to the University of Maryland in 2002 after falling out of favor with Tressel for what then-running backs coach Tim Spencer described as rules violations in a Jan. 29 2002 Columbus Dispatch story.
