Maurice Clarett to Florida State players: ‘Grow up’

Maurice Clarett, a former star rusher for Ohio State who fell out of grace due to legal issues, spoke to the Florida State football team about developing as human beings, not just football players.

“Bottom line: let me just break it (down) for y’all: Only 2 percent going (to the NFL)”, Clarett told the Seminoles. “If you made it from your neighborhood, you made it on campus, and all you did was basically play to the end at Florida State and you got a real education – not no (expletive) classes – that’s cool”. “There’s a lot of people in this room that want to be that”.

Clarett, 31, served almost four years in prison from 2006-2010 for aggravated robbery and carrying a concealed weapon.

This summer, the FSU football team has seen its share of player misconduct.

He said it was all because he was ill-equipped to deal with the stardom foisted upon him at Ohio State, where he helped the Buckeyes win a national title as a freshman in 2002. Clarett then unsuccessfully challenged the NFL’s draft eligibility rules, and wasn’t drafted until the Denver Broncos took him in the third round of the 2005 draft. According to ESPN, Clarrett spent more than an hour with the Seminoles, discussing “personal development and accountability”.

Clarett thinks all that could’ve been avoided had he been more open to the idea of growing up, whether that meant taking school seriously or being comfortable with an identity that didn’t revolve around football. “What happened to Maurice Clarett in prison was, I needed to grow the (expletive) up”, Clarett reportedly told the players. “So how do you go from being Mr. Everything to Mr. Nothing?” Of course, the message of each speaker is different, and typically aimed at the most at-risk young men on the team. “But sometimes, these guys have to see that”.

Clarett, who now runs a packaging and transportation businesses in addition to motivational speaking, urged players to build their lives away from football and to be accountable. On Wednesday, Florida State players heard from Tim Brown – the former Heisman Trophy victor recently inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.