RE Log - Fall 2022

FALL 2022 Ransom Everglades LOG 9 department chair, marveling at his frequent attendance at extra- help sessions. “You’re always here,” he remembers Exum saying. “This really matters to you.” It did, and the work paid off. By the end of his senior year, Clark had committed to play football at a Division I college in the Northeast. He had been a top recruit, and was excited about the next steps. Dartmouth College placed him on its wait list. When he got in off the wait list, his mother’s reaction was predictable. “I had already committed to [the other school],” he said. “I went home and told my mother I got this letter, and she said, ‘You’re going to Dartmouth.’ I said, ‘Mom, I’ve never even seen the school.’ She said: ‘You’re going.’” That fall, Clark arrived to Dartmouth and quickly broke into the starting lineup. Some of the games were on ESPN, and occasionally his mother would watch on television. “Did you see me play?” he would ask. “I know you played well,” she would say. “How are your grades? Football matters, but grades matter more.” During his junior year, he broke the Ivy League record for longest run from scrimmage with a 97-yard rush against Harvard (he later matched the record with a 97-yard run against Princeton). He was especially proud that day because he had left tickets for his new girlfriend – now his wife of 31 years, Nicole – to attend the game. The record run was featured that night on ESPN. Nicole, however, didn’t see the run. She never picked up the game tickets. She admitted later to her new boyfriend that she had decided instead to go shopping with her friends – which is when he realized she had a lot in common with his mother. “She didn’t care about football,” Clark said. “She cared about me. To this day, it’s still the same.” My mother and my wife “have really helped me understand, there’s a bigger picture,” he said. “It’s the holistic view. What is important to an individual is all the pieces. It’s the social, the academic, the relationships, the athletics, the fine arts. Life is about wellness and finding the right balance for you.” Plotting his return Clark’s first return to Ransom Everglades came after a stint in the National Football League with the Cincinnati Bengals and a season with the Birmingham Fire of the World League of American Football. When a knee injury ended his professional career, Clark returned to his mother’s home, began working out at RE and pondering next steps. That summer he got married, and his wife began a job with the Department of Children’s Services in Miami. Soon after, he bumped into the late Frank Hogan, the Head of School, after a workout. “Ever think of teaching?” Hogan asked. Shortly thereafter, Clark had agreed to teach three sections of Algebra II and two sections of middle school computer science, and to help coach football and track and field. He went through formal teacher training and on-the-job training and, he figured, the resilience he had learned on the football field helped him plow through various challenges. His salary that year was $19,900. About a month into the school year, a professional football team in Italy called, offering him a $45,000 contract. He said no. Turned out he liked this new job. Early in his tenure at RE, there was a racial incident on campus – White students had made racist remarks to a Black teacher on campus – and Clark sat on the disciplinary committee over the students. Fellow administrators were so impressed with his work on that committee that by the following year he was serving as assistant dean of students, and he assumed the deanship not long after that. Eight years after he arrived, he accepted a job at Pine Crest, a K-12 school that offered a perk RE could not match: it allowed his three young daughters to attend school at his place of work. He moved quickly through the ranks at Pine Crest, serving as dean of students, assistant head of the upper school and head of school on the Boca Raton campus. Yet there was never any doubt in his mind he would return to Ransom Everglades. He thought about it, he said, “Every time I came back to RE.” He returned for reunions and, in 2001, he was admitted to the RE Athletic Hall of Fame. By 2019, his three daughters had graduated from Pine Crest. Early this past summer, he found himself at dinner with the incoming and outgoing board chairs, Jonathan Fitzpatrick and Jeffrey J. Hicks ’84 . Turns out, they wanted what he wanted. Clark always imagined coming back as head of school, but he realized his strongest gifts and talents were in the areas of alumni relations, student and faculty recruitment, and family relations. The position he was offered fit perfectly. “I have not been uncomfortable in any moment since I made the decision to return,” he said. “I have not been unhappy in any moment. I have not been stressed about anything. I feel so happy being in a place that made a difference for me. And now I can continue to do that for this generation.” “This is my home. This is where I have grown up. This is what made me. And I have an obligation, I have a responsibility to give back …” – David Clark ’86 , COO & Interim Head of the Upper School