We can't exactly criticize anyone else for attempting to capitalize off the Maurice Clarett sentencing yesterday: We've certainly earned our fair share of frequent flier mileage from the story. But we nevertheless can't help but chuckle when several sportswriters across this great land inform us that, yesterday afternoon, they received a public relations email offering up the quotability of none other than our old pal Darren Prince. From the email: As former Ohio State football star Maurice Clarett pleads guilty to aggravated robbery and carrying a concealed weapon today, he will be sent to prison for at least 3 years. Clarett is not the first, and certainly not the last, sports star to be involved in robbery and other misdemeanor. Managing troubled athletes is a difficult part of the sports business and one person that can attest to that is Darren Prince, CEO of Prince Marketing Group, a New Jersey based sports management firm.
Working with the likes of Magic Johnson, Dennis Rodman, Hulk Hogan and Evil Knieval, Darren Prince has built a successful career out of working with some of America's biggest sports and pop culture icons – and some of the most infamous.
"Damage control is one of the responsibilities that will come inevitably in this field. You have to learn to spin something like an arrest or a prison sentence into something less negative than the media normally would," says Mr. Prince. "Managing an image is not easy, but it's a part of the sports business that I've dealt with for the past 10 or so years." Ignoring the little mispelling of "Evel," we appreciate Prince's attempts to become the sports world's foremost authority on "robbery and other misdemeanor." We do feel bad, though: Google News doesn't seem to show that any journalists bit. Well, other than us, anyway. Deadspin HOF Nominee: Darren Prince [Deadspin]
