He was last tackled on a football field nearly two years ago. He has missed more college seasons than he participated in. According to most NFL draft experts, he is not even ranked among the top dozen or so running backs.
But Maurice Clarett -- the one-time Ohio State star and NCAA rules violator who unsuccessfully sought to overturn the NFL's age requirement for entering the draft -- proved Thursday that he can still draw a crowd.
When Clarett arrived at the RCA Dome here for the scouting combine, where the speed of draft prospects is timed and their strength and fitness are measured, he generated the most buzz of anyone in attendance.
Clarett said he spent much of the past year training intensely to prove to league executives that he could excel on the field, and did a good deal of soul-searching to improve himself off it.
"I had to look at myself from outside myself, you know," Clarett said at a news conference shortly after undergoing the battery of medical tests that will welcome each of the combine's 333 prospects. "And when I looked at myself sometimes, I kind of looked like a joke to myself. I guess it was part of just growing up and becoming who I am today. And I just looked at it like one of y'all might look at me: `he was immature.' I did do some things that I shouldn't have done. And I've taken responsibility for all of things, and I'm just ready to move forward."
Moving forward, Clarett said, began a month after last year's combine. He started a rigorous weight training program, much of it while working under the supervision of his lawyer, David Kenner.
"I've been preparing for a long time," Clarett said. "This day has been on my calendar for a long time to come in here and interview with everybody and kind of knock out the kinks everybody had on me and the knocks everybody had on me."
Clarett credited Kenner with helping him see what some of those knocks were. "I made some mistakes that are obvious to everybody," Clarett said. "And I paid for them."
After helping Ohio State win a national championship as a freshman in the 2002 season, Clarett was suspended for his sophomore year for violating NCAA rules. He was cleared after being investigated for academic wrongdoing. Then, in an article in ESPN The Magazine in November of last year, he accused Ohio State of numerous violations, including paying him for a no-show job and giving him a loaner car.
Clarett said that he hoped to convince coaches that he had matured since he last met with them. Clarett described himself as "a more positive person."
"I have a lot greater work ethic than I had last year," he said. "I think my drive is a whole lot more determined than it was last year. And really I just want to work. I don't care if it's special teams or anything, just get me on the field I want to play with anybody."
Getting Clarett on the field means that some teams might have to first get over their old impressions about his past.
"He's a very interesting player because he's a very good player," Mike Nolan, the new coach of the San Francisco 49ers, said in a news conference here. "He's got a lot of skill, he's got a lot of upside. But there are also some issues that people are going to have to sit and decide how much does that weigh in our decision of taking that player."
In evaluating Clarett, coaches might have to rely more on his workouts because he has not played since the Buckeyes' victory over Miami in the 2003 Fiesta Bowl.
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