RENTON — Frank Clark knew the questions were coming about his troubled past, including an arrest six months ago on a domestic violence charge.
“They asked me to the point it echoed through my mind,” Clark said. “After a while they stopped asking me. I’m sure they felt confident in the answers I was giving them.”
The Seattle Seahawks went with Clark, despite his checkered off-field problems, selecting the defensive end from Michigan with the No. 63 overall pick in the second round of the NFL draft on Friday night. Clark was kicked off Michigan’s roster last November following his arrest in Ohio and accepted a plea deal to a lesser charge last month.
Seattle entered the draft with more picks than any other team — 11 — but was the final team to make its first pick in the draft when the Seahawks selected Clark with the next-to-last pick of the second round.
That number of picks was slashed when Seattle traded up in the third round to select wide receiver Tyler Lockett from Kansas State, filling a need both at receiver and returner. Seattle swapped third-round picks with Washington and sent picks in the fourth, fifth and sixth rounds to the Redskins to move up and select Lockett.
Seattle will go into the final day with six picks.
Clark is 6-foot-2 and 277 pounds. He appeared in 46 games and made 26 starts for the Wolverines and is projected to be a LEO defensive end with Seattle.
But most of the focus will be on his issues away from football. He pleaded guilty to stealing another student’s laptop in 2012 and was kicked off the Wolverines roster last November after being arrested on misdemeanor domestic violence and assault charges in Ohio.
Clark agreed to a plea deal last month that dismissed the first-degree misdemeanor charges for domestic violence and assault and had him accepting a charge of persistent disorderly conduct, a fourth-degree misdemeanor.
“I simply put myself in the position where I shouldn’t have been there,” Clark said. “There is no better way I could say it. I shouldn’t have been in the situation in the first place. I’m a grown man. I take full responsibility for everything that happened. I take full responsibility for my past, for my freshman year with the laptop. It’s just something I have to learn from and get better from. … I can’t go back and change the hands of time. I can only get better with my future.”
Officers in Perkins Township, near Sandusky, Ohio, said they responded to calls about a disturbance at a hotel and found Clark in the parking lot with bloody scratches on his nose and the odor of alcohol “emanating” from him, according to the police report. Inside, they found two broken lamps and a woman, Diamond Hurt, with a welt on her cheek and blood on one side of her head.
Hurt’s 15-year-old brother told police Clark “grabbed (Hurt) by her throat, picked her up off the ground and slammed her to the ground while also landing on top of her.”
Clark said every team asked significant questions regarding the November arrest.
“I believe I was wrong and I am sorry. And the main reason I am is because I put myself in a position where I shouldn’t have been in,” Clark said. “I’m not saying I did anything wrong as far as putting my hands on a woman, the case played out how it did I’m sure it reflected that. I’m sorry and I apologize to everyone that it affected.”
The Seahawks’ other pick Friday, Lockett, is the all-time leading receiver in Kansas State history and was a two-time Big 12 special teams player of the year. Seattle was looking to improve its return game after the trade of Percy Harvin in the middle of last season and Lockett also provides depth at wide receiver, especially with the questions about when Paul Richardson will be healthy after tearing his ACL in the NFC playoffs last January.
Lockett finished his career with 249 catches and 29 TDs, plus another six touchdowns on returns.
“They told me I was the No. 1 return guy they were looking at in the draft and now looking at it they want me to come in and be able to compete on special teams and compete at receiver,” Lockett said.
