Clemson has done right by Ray Ray

Like everything else in the Ray Ray McElrathbey saga, the latest chapter started poorly and got better.

Maybe Clemson head coach Tommy Bowden and school officials made it up as they went along over the last few days. Finally (we think), it was announced (if quite clumsily) that the college football player made famous for gaining custody of his younger brother, Fahmarr, has the opportunity next year to work toward a graduate degree while he serves as an assistant in the school's athletic department.

Technically, Bowden did not revoke McElrathbey's scholarship in that McElrathbey is allowed to continue his studies without having to cut large checks to Clemson.

Bowden, however, terminated McElrathbey's Clemson football career by at the very least strongly discouraging the Atlanta native from participating in the program. McElrathbey can keep his full football scholarship until he graduates in August with a sociology degree that will have been impressively gained in just over three years on campus.

To some, it qualifies as a classic case of "running off" a running back who has more eligibility.

And what a public relations nightmare, right?

Showing the love

I mean, Ray Ray was a guest on Oprah.

He was virtually a regular feature during televised Clemson games in 2006 after The Post and Courier's Larry Williams was the first to report his touching story.

But Bowden and Terry Don Phillips, Clemson's athletic director/law professor, didn't arrive in Pickens County in the back of poultry trucks (not that there's anything wrong with a dependable poultry truck).

On some level, and probably several, cutting football ties with Ray Ray was weighed heavily against perception, reality and that nebulous in between. Bowden keeps declining elaborative comment, so we must theorize. It's quite possible Bowden and others at Clemson can live with themselves knowing Ray Ray since signing on the orange dotted line came into a sweet trust fund, was embraced by the Clemson community and got to tell his story on ABC's World News Tonight and in Sports Illustrated.

Donations came in from all over. For example, Virginia football players pitched in when defensive lineman Chris Long shook down his teammates and mailed the money to the Fahmarr fund.

Fade to orange

It's possible the coaching staff is doing McElrathbey a favor by not saying why he no longer is wanted as a football player.

It's definitely not a stretch to say a non-professional football prospect in charge of a young teen might be better off moving on to the college-degreed work force or graduate work without having to worry about a relatively frivolous pursuit.

By the way, Bowden gets custody of another football scholarship, which might come in handy some Saturday down the line against Virginia Tech. But cynics have to know there are players he could have run off without having to answer so many questions.

No, this isn't the way the Ray Ray football story was supposed to end.

It should have gone something like ...

"Ray Ray McElrathbey in at tailback here in Chestnut Hill as the Tigers, down four, try to fight through snow flurries, the aroma of yummy Italian food and a tough Boston College defense with five seconds left on fourth-and-goal at the 2 ... Harper pump fakes to new tight end Trevor Booker, gives to Ray Ray and he scores! There's purple in the end zone!"

Fade to black.

Or orange.

In a real world all too familiar to McElrathbey, a degree and graduate study isn't a bad alternate ending to his Clemson experience.

Reach Gene Sapakoff at gsapakoff@postandcourier.com.