Maurice Edward Clarett (born October 29, 1983) is an American former football running back. He played college football for the Ohio State Buckeyes. During his freshman year he helped lead the Buckeyes to a national championship. In a widely unexpected move Clarett was selected on the first day of the 2005 NFL draft with the final pick of the third round (#101 overall) by the Denver Broncos. Clarett unsuccessfully challenged the NFL's draft eligibility rules that required a player to be three years removed from high school.
His tumultuous life outside football included his dismissal from Ohio State, several arrests, and imprisonment. In the years after his release from prison, Clarett became a public speaker, talking candidly about his previous struggles and recovery. Later, Clarett founded a behavioral health agency in Youngstown, Ohio. In recent years, Clarett was appointed to the Youngstown/Warren Regional Chamber of Commerce Board in February 2022.
After displaying his abilities as a freshman tailback on the Austintown-Fitch High School varsity team, Clarett transferred to Warren G. Harding High School and garnered national attention. When he graduated from Harding, national publications ranked him among the top 100 players nationally. Clarett was a 2002 U.S. Army All-American. Clarett received an offer from Ohio State University and verbally committed to Ohio State over offers from Notre Dame, Fresno State, and the University of Miami. He formally committed to the Buckeyes in February 2002. Ohio State's coach, Jim Tressel, had previously been coach of Clarett's hometown Youngstown State Penguins. Later, Clarett received the USA Today Offensive High School Player of the Year and Parade All-American distinctions.
Clarett started at Ohio State for the 2002-2003 season, rushing for 1,237 yards (then a school record for a freshman) and scoring 18 touchdowns, which helped the Buckeyes to a 14–0 record and the 2002 BCS National Championship. He scored the winning touchdown against Miami with a five-yard run in the second overtime in the 2003 Fiesta Bowl. Clarett also made a key defensive play in that game, stealing the ball on the Miami 28 from Hurricanes' safety Sean Taylor, who was returning an interception from the end zone of a pass thrown by Craig Krenzel. After that play, Ohio State kicked a field goal, giving them a 10-point lead at the time. Clarett was the first freshman to be the leading rusher on a national championship team since Ahman Green of the University of Nebraska–Lincoln in 1995.
Clarett's time at Ohio State University was marked by several troubling incidents. He was seen yelling at his position coach during the Northwestern–Ohio State game in the 2002 season. In December 2002, he publicly maligned OSU officials for not paying for him to fly home for the funeral of a friend and accused administrators of lying when they said he had not filed the necessary paperwork. In July 2003, Clarett became the center of an academic scandal when a teaching assistant told the New York Times that Clarett had received preferential treatment from professors, claiming he had not attended any classes during his only year at Ohio State. However, the investigation did not find sufficient evidence of academic misconduct. He was suspended for the 2003 season on September 10, 2003, over the acceptance of improper benefits and lying to investigators, something that he disputed. Clarett had also begun battling depression and alcoholism since as early as 2002.
In his attempt to enter the 2004 NFL draft, Clarett challenged the NFL's rule that a player must wait three years after graduating from high school to declare for the draft. Federal Judge Shira Scheindlin initially ruled based on anti-trust grounds that the NFL could not bar Clarett from participating in the 2004 draft. This decision was later overturned by the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in an opinion by Judge Sonia Sotomayor, and Clarett's petition for certiorari was refused by the Supreme Court. Clarett and USC wide receiver Mike Williams, who were both hoping to enter the draft early, were then barred from the draft by the NFL. Later, because they both signed agents before being denied the opportunity to join the NFL Draft, the NCAA refused to reinstate the college eligibility of Clarett or Williams. Notably, while the NFL was successful in blocking Clarett and Williams from entering the draft before 2005, they did allow Pitt wideout Larry Fitzgerald to enter the 2004 draft despite only playing at Pitt for two years without redshirting due to him spending a year at Valley Forge Military Academy and College after high school for academic reasons and the NFL considering that to satisfy the three-year rule; the league considered Clarett and Fitzgerald's cases to be separate.
In February 2005, he participated in the NFL Combine in Indianapolis. During a press conference, he uttered the phrase: "It's a humbling thing being humble." After running a disappointing 4.72 and 4.82 seconds in the 40-yard dash, he refused to participate further, and was referred to as "Slow-Mo" by the sports media, who were largely critical of his combine performance.
Ohio State declined to allow him to take part in a private workout for pro scouts in Columbus because it wanted to avoid a "circus" situation.
In an unexpected move, Clarett was drafted in the 2005 NFL draft with the final pick of the third round (#101 overall) by the Denver Broncos. Many experts felt that he would fall to the sixth or seventh round, if he was drafted at all; the Pittsburgh Steelers, a team that was in possible need of a running back due to the uncertain future of Jerome Bettis, publicly said that they would not draft Clarett. (Bettis ended up returning for what would be his final NFL season.) However, Clarett turned out to be unimpressive in the Denver Broncos' preseason training camp. As Clarett had not played a game in two years or practiced in over a year, he entered training camp weighing 248 pounds, more than 20 pounds overweight. He was also slow to recover from an injury.
Despite his unimpressive training camp, Clarett signed a four-year contract on July 28, 2005, with the Broncos in which he gave up $413,000 of guaranteed money in order to secure an incentive-laden deal. Clarett signed this deal against the advice of his former agents, Steve Feldman and Josh Luchs. Clarett's motivation was to replace the proposed deal with a package that would pay him first-round money if he rushed for 1,000 yards in multiple seasons.
However, after further disappointments and incidents with his coaches and never playing a preseason game, Clarett was released on waivers on August 28, 2005, only a month after signing a contract and before playing a down in the NFL. As is standard procedure in the NFL, for a 24-hour period after his release, other teams could have claimed him and taken on his contract. After that 24-hour period, Clarett was freed from his contract and able to negotiate with any team, but no team expressed interest.
As his college and NFL careers tanked, The Miami Herald reported in September that Clarett was already $1 million in debt from legal fees for his fight with the NFL and other costs. They also reported that Clarett turned down the traditional signing bonus in the originally proposed contract from Denver because his attorney, David Kenner, wanted incentives that would pay Clarett if he became a star.
Exploring alternatives to the NFL
In December 2005, Clarett was in talks to play for the Steubenville Stampede, a squad in the North Division of the American Indoor Football League. According to Jim Terry, Manager of the Stampede, "I have been in contact with [Clarett's] agent and he's expressed interest with us. ... Clarett is hungry and has something to prove. He has a chip on his shoulder and wants to show he can still play." However, Clarett never signed with the Stampede. In an interview with the Columbus Dispatch published on August 10, 2006, Terry claimed that Clarett attempted to call him just minutes before the events on the morning of August 9 that led to Clarett's arrest.