Kick Out the Sports!
by Bob Cook

Bob Cook's weekly ruminations on sports appear Mondays in Flak.

As of this writing, it appears Ohio State running back Maurice Clarett will sue his way into the NFL. He has to do this if he wants to turn pro now. The NFL's rule is that only a player who has completed his junior year of eligibility may sign a pro contract; Clarett is only a sophomore-eligible.

I say sophomore-eligible because merely calling Clarett a sophomore assumes he is progressing academically. That's a hard assumption to make, considering that Ohio State may well hold out Clarett for the season because of what the school says could be up to 150 pages of allegations involving various academic improprieties. None of this, by the way, addresses how Clarett afforded his tricked-out Hummer.

To keep this whole mess out of court, we need a compromise that would keep Clarett and others like him in college, yet would also give them the opportunity to taste the NFL life — and NFL money. And for traditionalists, it would also bring back a practice born just about the same day the first player took a paycheck. The answer is simple: Let college players suit up for the NFL under assumed names.

At that time — that time being the late 19th and early 20th centuries — the practice was a natural. Pro football had less than zero glamour, and was even seen in some quarters of the populace as unseemly. But collegians wanted to make a little extra coin without losing their eligibility. Hence, the use of assumed names. "Ladies and gentlemen, starting at end for your South Bend Huebners, a guy who happens to look a lot like Knute Rockne!"

Joe Carr, the commissioner of the newly formed National Football League, tried to crack down on ringers, including suspending the Green Bay Packers for five months in 1921 for having Notre Dame players on the payroll and instituting a rule in which players could not be signed unless their college eligibility had been used up. Still, the practice lasted up until the early 1930s. In one case, the Providence Steamroller in 1927 sent a cable offering a tryout to a Southwest Oklahoma State lineman playing under the name of Perry Jackson. Jackson, however, was ill and out of shape, so Jackson sent his teammate Arnold Shockley to try out under the name of Perry Jackson. Shockley-as-Jackson made the team. But the original Perry Jackson wasn't so lucky. He finally tried out in 1929, under the name of Arnold Shockley, and got cut.

Since then, the pro football talent development mill has been efficient enough not to require hiring ringers. At the least, a scout would now show up at Southwest Oklahoma State to see if Perry Jackson were Arnold Shockley, or vice versa. Then again, there are signs the use of assumed names is making a comeback. The Golden State Amateur Football League, a California semi-pro league, announced Aug. 10 it would revoke the Daly City Renegades' championship victory because the team added three players after the roster change deadline, including a former pro playing under an assumed name.

Now, if a player as high-profile as Maurice Clarett tried sneaking onto, say, the Arizona Cardinals one Sunday under an assumed name, he'd easily be recognized, moreso than the unnamed shlub suiting up for Daly City. Clarett would be recognized not just by his face, but by being the only Arizona player gaining yardage. Anyway, you have to have a set of rules if you're going to bring back this practice in earnest.

Here's how it would work. A player would do his usual college stuff with his college team, but he would be allowed to sign with any pro team on a game-by-game basis — as long as he signed it with a fake name. The college wouldn't lose its star and big-revenue generator. Yet that player could still earn some money on the side — perhaps even more than if he went early under his own name. Think of the promotional possibilities. How about having a contest in which Maurice Clarett, through the sponsorship of a major corporation paying him big dollars, has a fan contest to determine his name of the week? Think of the range and flexibility of endorsement opportunities for a player not tied down to one name.

Look at what this sort of thing did for the pro wrestling-backed XFL. OK, the league died, but everyone remembers that guy who was allowed to put "He Hate Me" on the back of his uniform.

E-mail Bob Cook at bobc@flakmag.com.