Clarett says that while he was at Ohio State in 2002 and 2003 head coach Jim Tressel, as well as certain members of his staff and boosters, provided him with improper benefits. He says he covered up Tressel's improprieties during the NCAA investigation and afterward, Ohio State "blackballed'' him from the football program.

According to Clarett, Tressel arranged loaner cars for him and Tressel's brother, Dick, found him lucrative landscaping jobs that he did not even have to show up for. He says members of Tressel's staff also introduced him to boosters who'd slip him thousands of dollars, and the better he played, the more cash he'd receive. He says boosters eventually began inviting him into their homes or would meet him out in the community.

"When you'd leave, [the booster] sets you straight," Clarett told The Magazine. "They say, 'You got any money in your pocket?' They make sure your money's straight."

Clarett also says he likely would have been ineligible for Ohio State's national title season of 2002 if the football staff had not "aligned'' him with an academic advisor whose goal was simply to keep him eligible. He says the academic advisor enrolled him in Independent Study courses and also put him with hand-picked teachers who would pass him whether he attended their classes or not. He says his advisor also introduced him to a tutor who prepared outlines and told him what to write for assignments.

Maurice Clarett isn't the only ex-Buckeye to allege improprieties at Ohio State. A number of players tell of similar experiences.

Marco Cooper, a linebacker suspended after two drug-possession arrests, says he enjoyed perks described by Clarett. When Cooper needed wheels, he says he went to a local Dodge dealer, got keys to a car and was allowed to return it whenever. Cooper never paid or signed papers. "There's no records for that stuff," he says. "There can't be." Just as there are no records for signed helmets and balls he says players use as currency around town for cars and clothing. "It starts at the No. 1 locker and goes all the way around the room," he continues. "You don't even know who you're signing for."

Cooper says a teammate once came home with a friend and some furniture for their apartment. The friend, an OSU student, was the son of a prominent booster. "He gave us furniture all the time," Cooper says. "At least $2,000 worth of nice tables and couches." In an interview last December, Curtis Crosby, an ex-Buckeye cornerback from Columbus, said he and other players accepted the same friend's generosity. He claimed that five to 10 teammates would go out to eat, none of them seeing the tabs for meals that cost hundreds of dollars.

Now, Clarett is a football pariah, denounced by his own school, a school he carried to a national championship almost two years ago. According to one NFL GM, Ohio State athletic director Andy Geiger disparaged Clarett's character to league officials last spring, leading some teams to take Clarett off their draft board. "The AD just didn't like Clarett, for whatever reason," the GM says.

But few know why Clarett kept answering "I don't know" to the NCAA's questions. The NCAA kept asking where he got his cash, cars and trinkets, and Clarett claims he kept saying "I don't know" or "I just magically got them" or "I don't remember." Geiger was furious with him for that, and the NCAA ran him out for that. But Clarett says he lied to save his coach's hide, lied because he thought his coach would convince Geiger to keep him eligible, lied because he didn't want to implicate the men in Columbus with deep pockets.

"He's ineligible because he declined to tell the truth 17 times during an investigation," Geiger says, while refusing to comment on Clarett's specific allegations. "If you want to give him credibility when he's been unable to tell the truth under any circumstance since I've been around him, I'm not going to respond."

But, says Clarett, "what would've become of Ohio State if I said everything? Half the team would've been suspended, and it would've been worse for everybody. I was like, why don't I just take it?"

He thought Tressel would return the favor and protect him, but instead he was suspended indefinitely. Then, he says, he was stripped of teachers, tutors and perks. He calls it an institutional "blackball." That's why he sits in front of a tape recorder now, 14 months later, so he can tell the NFL GMs that there's another side to this story. That's why he's making claims about free rides, free cash, free grades and an Ohio State system that he says lined his pockets and then methodically tore him down.

"Ohio State created me," Maurice Clarett says right off the top. "They created what they suspended."