Journal Six - David

Journal Six - Clarett Reflections

What are the two biggest takeaways from reading this book? For me I personally thought one of the biggest things was influence means a lot. Influence could be the people you like, the people you don’t like, and everything in between. This book shows us how by people acting certain ways how that can affect another. In the case of Clarett he had couches that affected him in different ways. Like how Tressel was a good mentor for Clarett and still talks to him this day. On the flipside you have Geiger who had been a bad influence on him and was trying to ruin his reputation as stated, “Andy Geiger even had that restaurant paint over the images of me in the mural commemorating the national championship game (Clarett 172). This was obviously to spite Clarett to make him have less of a reputation so people wouldn’t hold him in high regards. That would make anyone mad.

Next I believe that the book was about change. From the beginning of the book he started as a kid with a dream for football and later he realized he needed to change because he was going because he wouldn’t make it if he didn’t. He does this a lot during the book. One place this happens is when he grows up to go to college for football. He learns he’s matured physically but not mentaly. Then he grows from that stage to a responsible adult through hard work in jail. He wouldn’t be the person he is today without the changes he made in his life that is shown in the book.

Lastly I am going to talk about what I thought was the biggest take away from the zoom interview. I think Clarett says it best. He says that the book One And Done is a story about mentality. In a way that he says encomessis the entirety of the book. He states that the book is the journey of his life and how he goes from being a kid who didn’t want responsibility to a man with a wife and family. Looking back on it the last chapter supports this by saying, “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, and acted like a child. But now that I was out of prison, it was time to put aside my childish things and speak like a man, think like a man, act like a man” (Clarett 248)

Maurice talks to students about mental health.