Crossing paths with history

Mike Phillips spent his freshman year of high school watching a talented sophomore football player make older players look silly.
Phillips then spent his freshman year of college watching a talented sophomore football player make older players look silly.
Last Thursday, his two former teammates, Maurice Clarett and Larry Fitzgerald, won the right to enter the NFL draft a year early.
You say you've heard of them? Of course you have.
But Phillips is the only one person on the planet who's played with both of them.
"I think they both work really hard -- that's the biggest similarity," said Phillips, a redshirt freshman defensive back at Pitt last season. "They're both tremendous athletes, but they're both really hard workers. It's not just something they're born with."
Friends and teammates
Phillips knows Clarett better than most. He started on both sides of the ball during Clarett's final two seasons at Warren Harding. Before he left for Ohio State, Clarett told Phillips he was going to start his freshman year.
"Then he worked hard and started," Phillips said.
They kept in touch during Clarett's freshman year -- Phillips even went to three of his games -- and, when he wasn't there, he made sure to watch on TV.
They weren't best friends, but they were friends.
"I thought he and I were pretty close," Phillips said. "It's just that Reese is pretty outspoken. He's not going to keep nothing in. Face-to-face, he might say some things [on the football field] and you might not like it, but that's him. That's his personality."
Phillips didn't mind, but there were rumors that Clarett didn't get along with many of his teammates in high school. Not so, Phillips said.
"I think we were a pretty tight team," Phillips said. "I think outsiders talked more about the conflict than the team did."
And besides, wasn't it worth it? Clarett was no run-of-the-mill player. He worked harder than everyone else. He was dominating. Anyone who watched him run for 400 yards in a playoff game against Lakewood St. Edward his senior year could see that.
"That was just crazy," Phillips said. "Every time he got the ball, he'd run past the linebackers and he was big enough to run over the DBs. It was unreal. And then you watched him in college and he was doing pretty much the same thing."
And then Phillips got to college. And he saw much the same thing from another player. Only this time, it was a receiver.
Fitzgerald had Clarett's passion for hard work, but he definitely didn't have his personality.
"Maurice is a lot more outspoken," Phillips said. "Larry is more of a people-person."
Linked by history
Last week, their paths converged.
Fitzgerald, who went to a prep school for an extra year after graduating high school, successfully lobbied the NFL to enter the draft after his sophomore year.
Everyone agreed he was ready.
Clarett, meanwhile, successfully sued the NFL to enter the draft after his sophomore year.
Not everyone agreed he was ready.
"I think Reese set his mind on one thing, and he did it," Phillips said. "That's how some people are. That's the choice he made."
Did Phillips agree with the decision?
"I would say, maybe it's a good thing," Phillips said. "If a kid wants to go, let him go. A lot of them don't realize that things might not work out the way they planned, but they're grown men. If that's what they want to do, fine."
A lot of people at Pitt have asked Phillips about Clarett, but he rarely says much. He figures Clarett has done a pretty good job so far of speaking for himself.
But as the only player to see both Fitzgerald and Clarett up close, there was one thing I wondered.
Who's better?
"I can't say," Phillips said with a laugh. "One's a running back and one's a receiver.
"They're both good. I'll leave it at that."
XJoe Scalzo is a sportswriter for The Vindicator. Write him at scalzo@vindy.com.