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Inspiration at the Trials

Posted July 16th, 2008 at 11:00 AM by Jesse Squire

Section: News & Results, Motivation, Success Stories, Track & Field, Olympics

Of all the almost-famous people I crossed paths with at the Olympic Trials, the most inspirational was not an athlete.

After the women’s 800 meters, I was waiting for winner Hazel Clark to come off the awards stand when I glanced behind me and noticed a tall, thin black woman in her mid-40s, and thought “that must be Joetta Clark“. Standing next to her was a man of undetermined but advanced age, and I realized it was Joe Clark.

Joe Clark was made famous by a Time Magazine cover story on his resuscitation of the rough Eastside High School in Paterson, New Jersey. The story was dramatized in the 1989 film Lean On Me; Clark’s part was played by Morgan Freeman.

I grew up in a rough neighborhood and attended a high school that was slowly beginning to slide into the kind of place unsuitable for real education. I now teach in that same district and the type of tough love that Clark dished out is how we’ve kept it from sliding back.

A former Army drill seargant, Clark knows just about every trick in the book to instill toughness and self-respect in even the most hard-to-reach subjects. When it came to his own children, they had no easy way out. He insisted they learn resilience by competing in sports. They were channeled to track & field to learn self-reliance, and distance racing in particular because it was the most difficult of all the event areas. They did well.

Oldest daughter Joetta had a 24-year-long career highlighted by making her way onto four Olympic teams in the 800 meters. She wasan 11-time USA champion and a five-time national collegiate champion. She set the official national high school record of 2:04.5 in 1980, which stood for 28 years until being broken by Chanelle Price just this spring.

Middle son J.J. was not as successful as an athlete, but still did quite well. He was a New Jersey state champ in the mile and 2-mile, developed into a sub-4:00 miler at Villanova, and ran at the ‘88 Olympic Trials. He is now the head women’s track coach at the university of Tennessee, and under his guidance the program is Big Orange’s second-most successful women’s program after their world-famous basketball team.

Youngest daughter Hazel just made her third Olympic team, and is a five-time USA champion and three-time NCAA champion. But she didn’t even have the family record in the 800 until she was 24 years old.