Petulant one deserves fate

Let Maurice Clarett go to the NFL and get beat up.

Let this one-season college wonder have his moment in the NFL Draft tomorrow.

His reality will be delivered soon enough. His lack of foresight will end up knocking him to the turf.

He was not at Ohio State to be a student anyway. He was there to audition for the NFL.

He did the university no favors, even as he helped lead the Buckeyes to a national championship. He was a headache to both the coaches and administrators. He was an embarrassment, too. He just refused to play the game off the field. He wanted a wad of money in his pocket and a nice vehicle. He wanted what he knew was coming to his buddy, LeBron James, and he could not wait his turn. He could not be patient. He could not be smart.

Clarett never has been able to accept that professional football and basketball are incredibly dissimilar operations, both in business and physical terms.

James became outlandishly wealthy the moment he signed an endorsement contract with Nike. No such deal awaits Clarett. James’ multi-year contract with the Cavaliers was guaranteed money. He never had to score a point in the NBA to receive his millions.

Clarett will earn considerably less money in the NFL on a game-to-game basis, excluding a signing bonus. If he is released by a team after five games, he is out of a paycheck unless another team claims him. That is life in the NFL for a good number of players.

Clarett is hardly a prized pick. Scouts do not know what to make of him after he declined to attend the NFL Combine in February. His last foray on a football field was more than 16 months ago. He also comes with baggage, as an athlete who just might find trouble once he has an opportunity to lead the fast life in the NFL.

There also is this: Just how talented and physically mature is he?

The NFL is not the NBA. The NFL discards running backs like Kleenex. A carton of milk sometimes has as much shelf life as a running back in the NFL. Running backs are bent, twisted and tossed under a mass of humanity in the NFL. Running backs are always one hit away from being carried off the field on a stretcher.

Yet Clarett persists with his notion that he is ready to be among the men of the NFL. He is ready to take the beating. He has made it a legal cause, and remains in limbo after Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg decided to take a powder.

No, no, no. Let the petulant one receive the full force of his adventure. Let his career be a warning to others.

The lords of the NFL are correct. Theirs is a man’s league, a violent game that destroys body parts.

The legal precedents of the NBA are applicable only to a point, because the physical risks in the NFL are so much greater.

You would not want to see a 17-year-old running back in the NFL, would you? How about one who is 18 or 19? Where do you draw the line, as the NFL did following a player’s junior year in college?

Yet Clarett, who is 20, has no good options. He does not want to be in school. He does not want to go to the CFL.

If he ends up back in college, it will be only to bide his time until the draft next year. He only would mock the student-athlete concept anew. He would enroll in a few fall courses that Jim Harrick Jr. could teach and then drop out of school as soon as the football season was completed.

In principle, Clarett has a point. He has a right to try to earn a living wherever he chooses, and the NFL is seeking to deny him the right. The NFL also has a point. Sometimes you have to protect the young from themselves.

A 14-year-old boy might demonstrate great skill on a go-kart track. That does not mean you thrust a driver’s license in his hands and let him hit the highway.

In this see-saw claim, the push goes to Clarett.

He either is ready to play in the NFL, as he insists, or he will be a lesson to others.