Mark Wiedmer
It was Saturday morning, and Austin Clark was taking part in a Baylor School commencement for the 43rd and final time. As one might expect, a lot of memories flooded his mind. Those 36 years as Red Raiders basketball coach. The years he was also athletic director. And since 2018, assistant dean of students. So many memories, almost all of them good. All those students’ lives he touched, and all those students’ lives who touched him.
“Baylor gave me a job when I didn’t have a job,” Clark said a few days ago of his journey into a well-earned retirement.
“They took care of me and they took care of my family. It’s a special place. And I can’t lie. There were a few tears in my eyes Saturday morning as I thought back on all of it.”
They don’t make many men like Clark anymore, men of ethics and principles and a quiet dignity as opposed to howling at the moon, “Look at ME!!!!” He would often tell his players, who often made up in smarts, toughness and grit what they sometimes lacked in outrageous athleticism: “We’re going to play the game the right way.”
If you’re 71, as Clark is, you understand Play … The … Game … The … Right … Way. It’s about hard work, fundamentals, sportsmanship. It’s about leaving the trash talking to others. Never cheat the game by giving less than your best. In a town blessed with storied high school basketball coaches during much of his career _ Howard’s Henry Bowles, Brainerd’s Robert High, Tyner’s Jimmy Dillard _ Clark to a backseat to no one when it came to Xs and Os and game plans. In the rugged TSSAA Division II-AA private school league, he reached the state title game twice. He was Chattanooga’s high school coach of the year six times.
“Play the right way and play together,” he would tell his Red Raiders. But then what would you expect from a former Tennessee Vol who won the Tennessee Thoroughbred Award his senior year for the player who gives the most to the team?
A single story to show Clark’s old-school character: Like many a young basketball player in the South during the 1950s and 1960s, Clark dreamed of playing at the University of Kentucky for legendary coach Adolph Rupp, the Baron of the Bluegrass, when his high school days were done at Kingston (TN) High. Only time was running out on his senior season and Rupp hadn’t called. UT’s brash young coach, Ray Mears, did. He offered Clark a scholarship and Clark accepted it. Only trouble was, Rupp called a few days later with his own scholarship offer.
Clark went to his father and asked what he should do. His dad said, “Son, you’re only as good as your word, and you gave your word to Coach Mears.”
Crestfallen, Clark called Rupp back and said thanks but no thanks.
“I cried myself to sleep that night,” Clark recalled. “But I kept my word.”
Ask about the current state of sports, both college and high school, and his groans.
“It’s all about NIL now,” he said. “What’s in it for me? There’s no loyalty anymore. None. And I’m terrified how all this is going to look in five years.”
A Clark loyalty story: Last fall, near the end of the high school football regular season, McCallie threw a pregame reception for Ralph Potter, the winner of five state titles with the Blue Tornado, but also once the head coach at Baylor.
“I was the AD who hired Ralph at Baylor,” said Clark. “And what a coach he became.”
On the morning of the reception, Clark slipped on his trademark Baylor Red V-neck sweater and headed off to work. When he reached the reception late in the afternoon, he realized he was about to wear a red sweater into a sea of McCallie Blue.
Gary Welch, the McCallie board chair and a former Blue Tornado quarterback, gently chided Clark for his attire. In a move that both surprised and delighted the crowd, causing a roar of approval to erupt, Clark pulled off the sweater for a few minutes.
“That’s how much respect I have for Ralph,” he said.
Another Clark old-school perspective: There’s a lot of talk about going to a shot clock in high school basketball. The NBA has a 24-second shot clock. College has gone to 30 seconds. Wouldn’t the high school game be better with some sort of clock? Maybe 35 or 40 seconds.”
“Noooo,” Clark exclaimed when posed the question. “It takes away a chance to have upsets. The most talented team would almost always win.”
He misses coaching, but he loved being the assistant dean of students, of enforcing Baylor’s dress code, for instance.
“Discipline should be what you do FOR somebody, not TO somebody,” said Clark. “You’re trying to make them better kids, hopefully make them better adults. Our students would develop a way of letting each other know I was about to be in their part of campus. ‘Better have your shirt tucked in, Coach Clark’s headed your way,’ they’d signal each other. I was just trying to enforce the rules.”
His No. 1 rule now is to get in as much golf as possible to improve his 6-handicap. He’ll soon head to Ireland and Scotland for two weeks of golf, including the Old Course at St. Andrews, Scotland.
“A bucket list moment for sure,” Clark said.
He’ll also have more time to spend with Cindy and their adult children, Logan and Jordan.
And as he looks back on how it all started in 1982, he remembers that first coaching staff with Bill Cox and eventual Baylor head of school (now retired) Scott Wilson. Like Clark, Cox’s final commencement ceremony was also Saturday.
“It was so good,” said Clark of those early years with Cox and Wilson. “They’ve remained good friends ever since, such good people. Like I said, Baylor’s a special place.”
And of all the coaches and administrators who’ve walked Baylor’s halls and hills, few may have ever been more special in influencing the lives of its students than Austin Clark.