Are you kidding? Who better to grab them up than the Baltimore Ravens. They’ll be especially attractive if there are any convictions that come out of the matter. Murderin’ Ray is going to have to retire before too long, so who will anchor the convict lineup?
Ohio State did not revoke his scholarship. Clarett was suspended for a season, for taking improper benefits. Clarett had brought down a major NCAA investigation of the program and got suspended for breaking the rules. He then challenged the NFL rules on draft elgibilty and lost his ability to play college football under NCAA rules.
Ohio State is not to blame for the poor decsion making on this young man’s part.
You have a good point about Murderin’ Ray, but I think the Raiders should take them while they can…
(emphasis mine)
I wasn’t following the story too closely, but I’m pretty sure he did not try to commit suicide.
I’m pretty sure that nobody is sure about what went down that night.
This is not true at all. After attempting to become eligible for the NFL draft, Ohio State could have had Clarett reinstated as an eligible player by applying to the NCAA to reinstate him.
I guess I was mistaken about the scholarship issue. However before attempting to get into the NFL draft OSU Athletic Director Andy Geiger and OSU head football coach Jim Tressel both made comments to the press that in all likelihood Clarett’s days at Ohio State was over, that he would not be reinstated, and that after 2003 he probably would no longer have his scholarship.
I do hold Ohio State responsible for Clarett accepting benefits. He accepted benefits provided by Ohio State boosters I find it very doubtful that Clarett met these boosters by himself. I find it very likely OSU employees were responsible for that, I find it very likely that OSU employees knew damn well Clarett was being paid by boosters, I’m pretty sure in fact that they intended it that way.
Clarett isn’t the only ex-player to cry foul, either. Clarett claims he was given a landscaping job, with high pay, from Jim Tressel’s brother, a job he never had to show up at to get paid. Former OSU running back Robert Smith says everything Clarett said was consistent with what he knew about the program, former linebacker Marco Cooper said he too was given a no-show paid landscaping job from Dick Tressel. Curtis Crosby also has said he received benefits while at Ohio State.
A teacher’s assistant says Clarett walked out of a mid-term exam without completing it, yet was later given a passing grade in the class.
Clarett isn’t an isolated incident nor were his claims unsupported, nor does it appear even remotely possible Jim Tressel and the athletic department weren’t active participants in the corruption.
NCAA regulations are extremely complex. I genuinely believe Troy Smith had no intentions of violating NCAA regulations when he accepted $500 from a booster. I don’t think most college athletes have enough understanding of NCAA regulations to stay squeaky clean if they are playing for a school which allows boosters open access to the players, even encourages such access and the giving of said benefits. It’s certainly not likely that players at a school which gives academic perks to players is going to have an easy time knowing what is right and what is wrong. When the people who are supposed to be your mentors are actively helping you break the rules, I can’t imagine it being an easy situation to distinguish what you’re really supposed to do and what you cannot do. When the head coach’s brother is known for giving free money to players to perform “fake” jobs, I think you can safely say there is a culture of corruption at Ohio State, that has lead the young men who play for their football and basketball teams astray.
Do I think Clarett had a responsibility not the violate the rules? Of course. But I also recognize that the rules are incredibly complex, and that he had no real familiarity with them coming to Ohio State out of High School. I think the school, and schools in general, have a responsibility to educate their athletes and explain to them specifically what they can and cannot do in light of NCAA regulations. The school also has a responsibility to maintain an environment free of open corruption that could easily lead the players astray.
Let’s be perfectly honest, there are some amazingly intelligent student athletes out there (I believe LSU’s starting the QB the year they won the national championship was in medical school, actually) but a large number of them are admitted into schools with lower academic ability than most of their peers purely because of their ability at athletics. These are not in general the brightest students on campus, expecting them to singlehandedly understand and properly interpret and apply NCAA regulations that are argued about and debated by lawyers and policymakers with the NCAA ev ery year is probably a bit unreasonable.
I was at Marshall at the same time as Randy Moss (and in fact, tutored him, so that may color my perception of him as an absolute asshole - unlike the majority of the other guys on our football team, who we all quite liked), and I remember Randy being arrested at least once for assault and battery while at Marshall, possibly twice.
Didn’t affect him as one of our players, however :rolleyes: .
E.
My bad then. I really thought he cleaned up at Marshall 
Drop that part of my argument.
As for the T.O. thing, I know he denies the suicide attempt, but did he not take crapload of pills?
Lamar Thomas is a regular customer where I work. Now, I’ve read what he’s said and I don’t agree with it.
However, I will say I work at a place where people are routinely thrown out and/or arrested. He was the talk of the room today and overwhelmingly, everyone was shocked. My experiences with him have always been an absolute pleasure, he has always been pleasant, respectful, and a joy to work with. I’ve heard stories today about he has always backed away from potential confrontations and always handled himself like a gentleman.
It seems he wasn’t being “colorful” enough and was just reprimanded for it and was expected to be more colorful. Be careful what you wish for, I guess.
It is unfortunate that this is what he will be known for. In my neck of the woods, he has been nothing but a class act.
He did not. He emptied a crapload of pills out of the prescription bottle into a drawer. His publicist saw the empty bottle and thought he’d ingested them.
Apparently, NFL players take pills like senior citizens do: regularly, and by the truckload. Neither group generally leaves all those pills in the original prescription bottles; it is easier to organize them in some way.
As for the specific incident, he had a bad (allergic?) reaction to one of his medications and it knocked him for a minor loop. The same thing has happened to him several times in the past, only there wasn’t an over-reactive publicist in the room those times.
Hours after the 911 call, he was released from the hospital and on the practice field catching passes. No way does that happen after an actual overdose.
I actually know someone who was teaching in the school district (but not the same school) as Randy Moss when he was in High School. Supposedly he got into a pretty vicious fight in High School in which he repeatedly stomped in the chest of someone who was knocked to the ground to the point where the person had to be hospitalized for serious injuries.
Randy has always been a problematic individual. His failure to make it at both Notre Dame and Florida State and then his ability to make it at Marshall probably aren’t indicative that he had turned a new leaf, but rather Marshall–a program then breaking out of Division IAA football was willing to do just about anything to get a talent such as Moss on the field.
Lissa didn’t ask if he overdosed. The question was “did he take a crapload of pills?”
Owens maintains that he did not. I’m only about 75% convinced.
A couple of points:
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Which teaching assitant are you refering to? Is this the grad. assitant who was making stuff up and was pretty well delusional? Note, I am not disputing the rest of your examples. I think there may be some small innacuracies, but for the most part we agree that boosters were providing improper benefits. But there is difference between that and and academic fraud that was never proven.
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Clarett’s elgibility was gone when he tried to go to the NFL. He hired an agent, that ends NCAA elgibility. Strictly speaking, the school could have applied for reinstatement on Clarett’s behalf. But, it was not going to happen. Clarett had rules infractions already, had been suspended for a season, and gave up his elgibilty knowing full well he was not going back to college football.
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You hold the school repsoinsible for Clarett accepting benefits? WTF? Student Atheletes know from High School what they can and can not do. Clarett knew he was doing things outside of the rules, don’t give him a free pass on that. The school does have reponsiblity for knowing about improper benefits and doind nothing about it. Which the NCAA has found very little problems with at the Ohio State football program. I do find that result a little baffling, but I am not privy to the actual investigation done by the school and the NCAA. You might take note of the swift and severe reaction to the discovery of improper actions in the basketball program, a move that has made the NCAA happy but has actually caused the school legal problems with the now former coach.
As to the OP, the suspensions given out by both schools are a joke. The president of Miami Univ. was interviewed on ESPN Radio this morning, and I was so disgusted I could not listen.
Taking a crapload of pills is an overdose. I addressed the question directly.
They were. We were lucky that our other players weren’t like him - Chad Pennington and Byron Leftwich were nothing like him (and my best friend’s fiance was roommates with one of the other guys from the team, so we did meet up with guys from the team a lot). Randy got away with a LOT at Marshall. And I got sick of showing up for sessions and not having him show up.
BTW - my best friend did go to that high school, and her mom was a teacher’s aide there. Randy was a serious problem, according to her. They’ve told me about that fight before, and my friend’s mom tried to help break it up before she realized that Randy would probably beat the shit out of her (she’s not a big woman) if she didn’t back away and wait for someone else to handle it.
As proud as I am of the rest of the guys from Marshall who’ve done well, I wouldn’t bat an eyelash if Randy was suspended from pro football indefinitely.
E.
If he took a crapload of pills, then threw them up very shortly thereafter, he could have easily been on the practice field the next day.
Of course, IANAD, but the few I have talked to confirmed this.
Lamar Thomas was trying to be remembered for something more than the guy who gave away the ball in the National Championship game. 
(scroll down).
Also, the above site has his supposed “response”.
You know someone who teaches in Kanawha County? There’s a chance we have a mutual friend. I attended high school in this same county but not the same school (the now-consolidated-Dupont High School) as Moss. I think he’s 4 years older than I am. I don’t know the guy personally and have only seen him a couple times IRL from a distance, but, though it’s all hearsay, I’ve heard accounts from several Marshall alumni who described him as a student who rarely went to class and acted exceptionally arrogant in classes when he did attend. Though, I also heard a first-hand account from someone who was dining at a local restaurant when Moss (a pro football player by that time) walked in to the place have a meal and he picked he picked up the tab for all the patrons who were present. At least he was generous in his his show-off sorta way.
Yes, I also recall Moss being arrested for a violent crime while in high school. One could search the local papers’ (Charleston Gazette and Charleston Daily Mail) archives circa 1995-96 and dig up the relevant articles that reported the arrest(s) and subsequent trial but there’s a small fee to do so.