Talking with ex-Booker star and current Wake Forest shooting guard Gary Clark
March 6th, 2009 by Cooper Levey-Baker in Editor's Desk, News, Sarasota-Manatee, Sports
As a junior at Booker High School, Gary Clark helped the school win a Florida state title; year after that, he transferred to Montverde Academy in Montverde, Fla., for his final year of high school. While there, universities such as Georgia, Illinois and Vanderbilt tried to recruit him, but Clark eventually chose to attend Wake Forest, my alma mater. Now a sophomore with the Demon Deacons, Clark comes off the bench as a backup shooting guard. I spoke with Clark, whose family still resides in Sarasota, after a recent practice spent preparing for the ACC tournament. Here’s Clark on:
Being recruited by former Wake coach Skip Prosser, who died of a heart attack on July 26, 2007:
“He was a very integral part of my recruiting. He came down to see me probably more than any other coach. A day or two before [he died], we were with him eating some McDonald’s. … We were in summer school; When I first heard the ambulance I was in tutoring. … It was definitely a hard time. I think everybody took it their own way. My family was deeply hurt, but you have to get through it as a team.”
The difference between last year’s 17-13 squad and this year’s 24-5 team:
“Last year, I think we were younger. Some of us, we didn’t know what to bring every night, and this year we came into it with a new mindset and we wanted to do it for coach Prosser.”
What the team learned during a 2-4 mid-season skid:
“Sometimes, I feel like you need a wakeup call. You have to realize what you need to do to win. You have to learn from that. … We definitely take this seriously, and we take every game seriously. We’re playng for the ACC tournament and to get a good seeding in the NCAA tournament. … Every team in the ACC is good and we see that Georgia Tech is good, Miami is good. The top and the bottom is strong. … We don’t take anything for granted.”
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