Mike Celizic

Falls from grace, as with most things in life, come in a wide variety of forms. There are the little slipups — like Don Mattingly getting nailed for urinating in an alley — that are immediately forgiven and quickly forgotten. There are the basic knuckleheaded stunts that are embarrassing but can be weathered with time — like Paul Hornung’s suspension for gambling. And then there are the flaming Hindenburg-like crashes from on high that are so spectacular they leave us gaping in awe, dumbstruck at the destruction. Oh, the humanity.

It’s not easy to make that last category. It is, in fact, just as difficult in its own way as it is to climb to the summit of the opposite end of the spectrum, where only those who are darned-near perfect hang their laundry. But Maurice Clarett has managed it.

A little more than four years ago, Clarett was the best thing to happen to Ohio since free rights on red. The star freshman running back for the Ohio State Buckeyes scored the winning touchdown in the second overtime to beat Miami and bring the national championship back to Columbus.

A year later, he was a mild slipup, charged with lying to police. A bit later, he was edging into basic knucklehead mode, showing up out of shape for the scouting combine and neglecting to exert any effort in Broncos camp. Within another year, he was charged with robbing someone of a cellphone — at gunpoint. He was teetering on the edge.

Early Wednesday morning, he came down in flames in an episode made for a wildest police chase video. We’ll leave to the police the questions of where he was going after 2 a.m. dressed in body armor and driving an SUV with a stock of loaded guns and a half-bottle of vodka. I’m guessing it wasn’t to pick up groceries.

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The fall took a while to develop, but it vaults Clarett into the top rank of fallen athletes, earning him a seat in the same row with Lawrence Phillips, the former star running back at Nebraska who started his slide by beating up women and most recently had elevated his game to stealing a car and trying to run down a flock of teenagers.

A couple rows lower down is Art Schliester, the former Ohio State star quarterback who was eaten whole by a gambling addiction. Near him is Todd Marinuanovich, the USC quarterback who would rather get stoned than play football. He’s keeping a seat warm for Ricky Williams, who may or may not yet turn things around before he hits the rocks.

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At the top of this heap of losers reigns Pete Rose, the all-time hits king of baseball who spent time in jail for tax evasion and is spending the rest of his life and then eternity banned from baseball because he gambled on games.

At his right hand is Mike Tyson, who was having a great career right up until he was sent to the slammer for sexually assaulting a beauty pageant contestant. On his discharge, he worked some Hannibal Lector into his act, spent every nickel Don King let him keep of the hundreds of millions of dollars he made, and pretty much dropped off the face of the earth.