Reply #12: In a way, yes [View All]

[theHandpuppet]

Because the person whose life is truly destroyed is his own. How much do you know about Maurice Clarett and how he grew up? This is a young man who needed help a long time ago because whatever it takes to graduate from the school of hard knocks, Clarett didn't have it. Despite his physical gifts and talents, he didn't have the emotional/psychological strength to overcome his personal demons.

No one is excusing his crimes here. He's made all the wrong choices, terrible choices and now he will pay the consequences as he should. But in his own way he is his own victim and a victim of a society which is failing our young in depressed urban areas throughout the country. Clarett could have chosen differently, but it's a lot easier to make those right choices when you've grown up in a nice neighborhood, never witnessed your friends being gunned down in the streets, had the guidance of a father who took some responsibility for his family and not tried to struggle with all that plus the expectations and media spotlight on and off the field. That's not to mention the money that was being waved in front of his nose, the kind of money a kid with empty pockets finds hard to ignore.

It's a sorry story, but one with bigger implications on the society which served as his breeding gound. That's all I'm saying.