After I left Gary Wichard, I teamed up with Steve, who had a small but solid client base that included Dillon and Harrison. Almost instantly we got some new clients, including troubled Ohio State running back Maurice Clarett (for whom we did some of our best work; a player no team should have touched got taken in the third round). But it was nothing like when Steve and I joined Gersh. At our new agency, we had something powerful to sell to players: celebrity. We told them, “Come sign with us and be a star.” We put Marcus Spears in a TV pilot; NFL wideout Kassim Osgood made a guest appearance on Jericho; when I was recruiting receiver Steve Smith from USC we got him on an MTV pilot. We were selling TV and movies to athletes, and it was like having the freakin’ Golden Calf.
