Former sports agent and current author Josh Luchs has written a new tell-all book about the uglier side of college football — ‘Illegal Procedure: A Sports Agent Comes Clean on the Dirty Business of College Football‘. In the book, he details troubled former Ohio State running back Maurice Clarett’s shady path to the NFL.
Is there really any surprise that Clarett and Ohio State would be mentioned in a book about the dirty business in college football?
The book is scheduled to be released on March 27th.
“I got a call one day in the fall of 2004 from my wife’s brother, who, like the rest of the family, worked in real estate. In his work he’d come across someone named Hai Waknine, an Israeli “businessman” . My brother-in-law said, “Have you ever heard of a guy named Maurice Clarett?” and I started laughing because nobody who does what I do within 500 miles of a college football game hadn’t heard of Clarett.
After Ohio State won the 2002 national championship, Clarett attempted to declare his eligibility a year earlier than the NFL allows. His decision wasn’t so much trying to set a groundbreaking legal precedent as it was a practical one. He’d been suspended by Ohio State for the 2003 season for misconduct, so his choices were to sit out a whole season then play another year as an amateur, or go pro and get paid. It wasn’t a tough call.
Clarett won the first round in his legal battle for eligibility, but lost round two in a higher court. Once he lost, and his attorney Alan Milstein reported that he’d hired an agent, he forfeited all his remaining college eligibility.
At that point, he had no choice but to wait for the next draft, which was what he was doing. My brother-in-law said that Hai Waknine was taking care of Clarett – who was living at Waknine’s house – and they were looking for help in representation. Wow.
Clarett was not exactly an ethics major, but he was the kind of high-profile player that could really put us on the map. It was a chance to start recruiting big-ticket prospects again. So my brother-in-law made a call and patched me in to Hai Waknine, and other than him being a little scattered, the opportunity seemed legitimate. I started thinking I could end up representing this kid. I told Steve Feldman, the agent I was working with. Even though we’d only been together a few months, Steve trusted me and said he was all in. I put together a portfolio on Clarett.
KingLaLa.com 