Let's not forget: Maurice Clarett is a Heisman Trophy front-runner. Best player in America, some think.
No amount of anonymous-sourced, maybe, maybe-not allegations are going to take him down. Not in July. Perhaps not ever.
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| Maurice Clarett and the Buckeyes get another taste of life on top.(Getty Images) |
Duck!
The same reason Americans love a winner is the same reason Clarett and his mates are on the firing line for the foreseeable future. They are news. People care. They are hot, or at least interesting. Suddenly, they matter to the peripheral fans who don't know Buckeyes from black eyes.
Ask yourself this question: Would the New York Times be writing this story if Clarett played at, say, Nevada? No, because the Wolf Pack are the football equivalent of Bronson Pinchot. So irrelevant their own mothers might ask for ID.
Right now, folks might hate Scarlet and Gray but they'll read every single word about the guys who wear it. Yeah, this includes even you, Michigan Fan.
Why? Success invites scrutiny. Scrutiny inevitably produces scandal, whether real or contrived. That's when we really press our noses up against the window, slow down to watch the highway accident.
They only thing we love more than building up our heroes is watching them fall. Watch Access Hollywood on any given day. Unless you're lucky enough to be named Cruise or DeNiro, the shelf life of the average American celebrity is shorter than the life span of a fruit fly.
Welcome, Maurice, to our disposable society. Like it or not, you're in it. In fact, tag! You're it.
The dark side of the tremendously talented Ohio State back only whetted our appetite last year. He brooded, he sulked, he yelled at an assistant coach. Then he showed tremendous courage playing in pain and ripping off brilliant runs.
His story stirred up an otherwise quiet Fiesta Bowl. Clarett criticized school officials for not allowing him to fly home for a friend's funeral. Without realizing it, Clarett created a jock passion play in the desert -- callous university vs. grieving star footballer.
By Hollywood standards, Clarett was a genius. He unwittingly manipulated public opinion. Remember, when your fame is at stake they say there is no such thing as bad publicity. Somewhere, Sean Penn was jealous.
It is the classic American dichotomy. Love him or loathe him, you have to watch him. Ask Simon Cowell. American Idol's talentless, snippy, arbiter of cool has based a "career" on that philosophy.
Suddenly, Ohio State is realizing that if it has anything to hide, it won't for long. It will be exposed more than J-Lo's cleavage on the red carpet.
Clarett just happens to be an athletically gifted, outspoken lightning rod. He reportedly provided examples of cheating by Ohio State athletes at a meeting with instructors. Tutors writing papers, that sort of stuff.
Welcome, Ohio State, to the jungle, where spin, backpedaling and damage control are hanging from the trees. Hiding behind student privacy laws won't do anymore. Not when the grade-point exploits of quarterback and uber-student Craig Krenzel have been extolled by the school.
This is a place where Jim Tressel's most inflammatory statement has nothing to do with football.
"The only excuse for missing a class," Tressel was quoted as saying when he took the job, "is a death in the family -- your own."
Clarett reportedly walked out of a midterm exam. Receiver Chris Vance reportedly had 11 unexcused absences. Both are still alive, so some combination of Vance/Clarett/Tressel have some 'splainin' to do.
But after what happened at Tennessee, are we to believe that any program is going to get the hammer without rock-solid evidence? English professor Linda Bensel-Meyers and others laid out what looked like a detailed pattern of academic fraud at UT. All it got Bensel-Myers was unmerciful harassment for the better part of four years. She recently left the school.
No wonder the Times source in this case didn't want to be identified. Look what happened to tutor Jan Gangelhoff when she blew the lid at Minnesota. Three years later, the Justice Department decided not to prosecute her after she admitted to writing more than 400 papers for athletes.
The biggest reason Ohio State is likely to skate on this one: The NCAA always has been squeamish about telling schools how to grade its athletes in the classroom. It's that delicate area where the association doesn't think its scrutiny belongs.
No matter what you think about Tennessee or Ohio State, this is good. Myles Brand was criticized recently for not using his power and influence to condemn proceedings during the ACC expansion.
The truth is, Brand (or any NCAA president) has no real power and influence. Oh, the NCAA's still-new chief could have constructed a bully pulpit to blast the crass, ruthless, hostile coup perpetrated by the At-all Costs Conference.
But (swallow hard here) the NCAA is still, at its core, a non-for-profit, voluntary organization. It has no business telling a business like the ACC how to run its business.
Back to Columbus where the first big-time shot at the post-championship Ohio State monolith didn't quite hit the target.
Athletes being given preferential treatment? Never heard of that one.
Anything to stay eligible? Tell us something we don't know.
And there is this: With all due respect, excuse us if we have the slightest bit of skepticism at this report. It was based on the accusations of a disgruntled anonymous teacher's assistant, who was then discredited by the chairman of the department.
What used to suggest a Deep Throat, now means asking deep questions. Amid the journalistic rubble left by Jayson Blair, don't we need more substance than this?
But like Ohio State, Blair's got scoreboard. In the end, he won. At some point, Blair is going to write a book, make six figures (or more), and probably end up hosting some bad cable game show. Steal Ben Stein's Quotes?
Ohio State won, too. For the sake of argument, let's say Clarett and academic system at the school are guilty as hell. The Buckeyes have their national championship, and no one is likely to take that away.
The mindset was once explained this way: In the midst of SMU's NCAA problems in the 1980s, it was said that some powerful SMU boosters would gladly endure the probation if the cheating landed a national championship.
Whether Clarett, his mates or Ohio State did anything academically wrong is still highly debatable. The point is, the searchlights are trained on the program.
They aren't going to burn out any time soon.
