- He was a five star recruit coming out of High School.

- He broke the Ohio State freshman rushing record by running for 1,237 yards and scoring 18 touchdowns in his one and only season with the Buckeyes.

- He scored the game winning touchdown against the University of Miami to help Ohio State claim their first National Championship in 32 years.

Yes, Maurice Clarett wasn’t just some football player back in 2002; he was everything. At only 20 years of age Maurice’s excellent play as a freshman and National Title game heroics elevated him to legendary status. He was at the top of the mountain and at the time was thought to be a can’t miss player who was destined for greatness. Little did anyone know at the time that as quickly as Maurice Clarett rose to the top he would fall to the absolute bottom.

After Clarett’s fabulous freshman campaign everyone was looking to see what he could do for an encore in his sophomore season with the Buckeyes. It would turn out though that there was no encore performance in the cards for Maurice Clarett and that his freshman season would be his last at Ohio State. Clarett was ruled ineligible to play by the NCAA for taking special benefits worth thousands of dollars.

After the NCAA ruled upon Clarett’s ineligibility, Maurice sued the National Football League to enter the NFL Draft early. The NFL holds the policy that a player must be three years removed from high school before he can enter the NFL Draft. At the time Maurice wasn’t yet three years removed from graduating from Warren Harding High School in Warren, Ohio. Clarett and his attorneys argued that the NFL’s rule that requires players to be three years out of high school before being eligible for the draft violated antitrust laws and harms competition. Unfortunately for Maurice he lost his lawsuit against the NFL and the draft rule remained the same as it had been.

Clarett eventually was selected in the NFL Draft, but he wasn’t selected in the 2003 draft or the 2004 draft but rather he was selected by the Denver Broncos in the third round of the 2005 NFL Draft. If you are counting that is three years after he made a name for himself during his freshman season at Ohio State. Unfortunately for Head Coach Mike Shanahan and Broncos ownership Clarett didn’t show the same ability and promise he showed while running wild at the Horseshoe. Maurice showed up to Broncos training camp weighing 248 pounds (at least 20 pounds overweight), never played in a preseason game due to a groin injury, and looked unimpressive overall which resulted in Denver’s decision to cut Maurice Clarett on August, 28th 2005. Maurice never played a single play in the NFL.

After being cut by the Denver Broncos the consensus amongst most people was that Maurice Clarett had hit rock bottom. Once again though nobody knew at the time that the hardest and most devastating aspect of his plummet was yet to occur.

On January 1st, 2006 the Ohio State Buckeyes were in Glendale, Arizona and were set to play Notre Dame in the Tostitos Fiesta Bowl on the following day. The last time the Buckeyes played in Glendale, Arizona was in 2002 and a young freshman named Maurice Clarett ran in a touchdown in double overtime to secure a Buckeye National Championship. That was four years ago though and Buckeye Nation had moved on and a man named Ted Ginn Jr. was the new face of Ohio State football. Clarett meanwhile was remembered simply for his post Buckeye fallout and occasionally was a good punch line for a joke.

While Buckeye players were awaiting their matchup against the Fighting Irish on the night of January 1st, 2006, police announced they were searching for Maurice Clarett in relation to two different incidents of armed robbery. It was later found out that Clarett robbed two people then he escaped in a white SUV.
Clarett turned himself in to police just shortly after 9 p.m. on January 2nd, 2010. Ironically at the same time Clarett was turning himself in to the police his former team the Ohio State Buckeyes was putting the finishing touches on a 34-20 Fiesta Bowl victory over Notre Dame.

When Clarett’s former coach Jim Tressel was asked to comment on the incident, Tressel simply said "I hope it's not true, but beyond that, I don't know much, but my reaction is, I was sad."

In the end Clarett went on to plead guilty to aggravated robbery and carrying a concealed weapon. The former Ohio State star was sentenced to 3 ½ years in a Toledo prison for the charges.

His fall had finally ended and once the free falling stopped he was behind bars for over 40 months. He was a long way from appearing on the set of ESPN’s College Gameday to chat with Lee Corso and Kirk Herbstreit prior to the kickoff of Ohio State’s 2003 opening night game against the University of Washington.

Flash forward to 2010 and Ohio State is still searching for their first National Title since 2002 and many think the 2010 squad is the one that will bring another title back to Columbus. Maurice Clarett is a distant memory, Ted Ginn Jr. is gone and now all the buzz is about quarterback Terrell Pryor. Just as all the excitement is building towards the beginning of the 2010 campaign, the end of Maurice Clarett’s three and half year prison term has come to a close and Clarett immediately made headlines upon being released from prison.

Ohio State University had granted Clarett re-entry to pursue his degree and Maurice announced that he would be back on campus in the summer not to petition for extra years of football eligibility but rather to be an average undergraduate student at Ohio State. In a statement about the decision there was no longer the sound of the brash young man who wanted to take on the NFL but rather the talk of a humbled person who said he didn’t want to be a "distraction or nuisance" to other students or the football team.

The itch was still there to play for the former football star though; he was back in the classroom and out of prison. The one question remained could he ever get back onto the field? It turns out he does plan on trying to do what previously seemed to be impossible and that is to play professional football again.

Maurice Clarett has recently filed a motion with a judge asking for permission to leave the state of Ohio for a football tryout with the Omaha Nighthawks of the United Football League. Clarett can’t leave the state of Ohio to attend the tryout in Nebraska until he receives clearance from the court.

Maurice Clarett’s attorney Michael Hoague said that Clarett is determined to make his comeback dreams a reality.

"Since he re-enrolled in summer-quarter classes at Ohio State, he's been going to school and also working out each morning at the Woody Hayes Athletic Center," Hoague said. "He looks really good."

Hoague also addressed the questions that the Omaha Nighthawks organization had about Maurice.

"The people in Nebraska had a couple of questions about Maurice. First, was his head on straight? And it's on really straight," Hoague said. "Second, is he in shape? And the answer to that is he's in great shape."

It has been done before, but the question still remains can Clarett really pull this thing off? Can a guy who fell so far pick himself up off the ground and start climbing back up again? That is what Maurice Clarett is trying to do. He is trying to rewrite a new legacy for himself rather than being the washout that had his one year of greatness. Even if the tryout with Omaha doesn’t work out, credit should be given to Clarett for taking summer classes and working out again in pursuit of his previously unrealized dream. Only time will tell if it works out for him or not but the fact that he is trying to pick himself back up is great in off itself.

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