This feature originally appeared in the 2022-23 Winter edition of the Cal Sports Quarterly. The Cal Athletics flagship magazine features long-form sports journalism at its finest and provides in-depth coverage of the scholar-athlete experience in Berkeley. Printed copies are mailed four times a year to Bear Backers who give annually at the Bear Club level (currently $600 or more). For more information on how you can receive a printed version of the Cal Sports Quarterly at home, send an email to CalAthleticsFund@berkeley.edu or call (510) 642-2427.
The "Clark Era" of Cal rugby is one of incomparable achievement. For the last 40 years and counting, legendary head coach Jack Clark is to be credited for all of it.
Clark is the sixth head coach in Cal rugby history and is in his 40th season at the helm. His reign is the longest of any Cal head coach in history. To say that Clark's tenure at Cal has made him an icon is not an understatement.
Clark always knew he wanted to be a coach because of the influence his own coaches had on him growing up as an athlete in football, basketball, rugby and track and field.
"I won the lottery with coaches," Clark said. "I had wonderful coaches in all the sports I grew up playing – coaches that became great forms of inspiration to me."
But coaching rugby wasn't always the dream for Clark. He originally envisioned being a football or basketball coach, but the nomadic career path wasn't appealing to him.
Clark played football and rugby at Cal and graduated in 1978. He went on to have a short stint on the NFL and international rugby scenes. In the final rugby match of his playing career in 1980, he was a member of the All-World rugby team and played at the Centennial of Welsh rugby at Cardiff Arms Park in Wales. Clark was the only American to start in the lineup that day.
As his playing days came to a close, Clark entered the bustling business world of San Francisco to embark on a new career. However, the young businessman couldn't keep away from the world of sports. So Clark joined the Cal rugby coaching staff as a part-time assistant in 1982 under his former coach Ned Anderson.
"It was rewarding to be in the competition of investment banking, and the best of all worlds was to rip off my necktie and end up coaching the rugby team in the afternoons," he said.
Clark took over as head coach of the program two years later in 1984, the start of what would be a prosperous career. He had a whopping $1 annual coaching salary from Cal until 1993 when he left banking behind and made coaching his full-time career.
"At the time, coaching seemed like the most significant thing I was doing," Clark said. "If you did it well, you could make a real difference in someone's life. Conversely, if you did it poorly, you could do damage. It felt like a good way to spend a life, being a coach."
When Clark took over, Cal rugby's presence was already established as an elite collegiate program, so he felt a strong responsibility to retain its place in the game as the team's leader. But Clark didn't just sustain the program's reputation in these last 40 years - he accelerated it and cemented it in history. In doing so, he also made a name for himself as one of the greatest rugby coaches of all time.
"I knew Jack was special when I met him, and I had been around a lot of great coaches in my career," said Bob Driscoll, former Cal Executive Associate Athletic Director and recently retired Athletic Director of Providence College for 21 years, who earned Big East Athletics Director of the Year in 2016, among other recognitions. "Jack just has this 'it factor' that you can't teach."
Clark's coaching statistics and records over the last 40 years speak for themselves. He has led the program to 29 national championships – 24 in XVs and five in sevens. He holds an unparalleled coaching record of 693-97-5 (.875) in XVs and 232-24-0 (.906) in sevens, making him the all-time winningest coach of the program's 141-year history.
Clark has also produced 146 All-Americans, 59 U.S. National Team members who have made nearly 800 combined appearances on the USA Eagles XVs team, six players who have earned their "Blues" at Oxford and one two-time Olympian. Those numbers will surely multiply as the Clark Era persists.
Highlights from Clark's long list of recognitions are headlined by the Glenn T. Seaborg Award, an annual honor named after the former University of California chancellor and Nobel Prize-winning chemist which is presented to a former Cal football player for his accomplishments in his career. He is also a recipient of the prestigious Craig Sweeny award, given to former U.S. National Team player who made significant contributions to the game and emulates high character. Clark was inducted into the Cal Athletics Hall of Fame in 2016, his nomination even spurring a change in the bylaws to eliminate the required gap between the end of a coaching career and eligibility for induction. Clark was also inducted into the U.S. Rugby Hall of Fame in 2014, the Edison High School (Huntington Beach) Alumni Hall of Fame, the Orange Coast College Athletics Hall of Fame and the California Junior College Football Hall of Fame.
Beyond his commanding presence on Cal's pitch, Clark is also an influential leader of the United States rugby community at-large and is widely credited for the advancement of collegiate rugby both on Berkeley's campus and nationwide. He was central to the campaign to build Witter Rugby Field, which he so fondly refers to as "the center of the universe," and to the team's re-elevation to varsity status, both of which propelled the program's presence on campus and nationally. Additionally, Clark founded the U.S. Collegiate All-American Team in rugby, which he coached from 1985-92.
Clark was also the general manager and head coach of the U.S. National Team from 1993-99, during which he led the team to the most-ever victories under an Eagles head coach with 16 wins in international test matches. Clark stayed on as the general manager from 2000-03. During that time, he coached a young Tom Billups and brought him onto Cal rugby's staff, the start of Billups' 24 years working side-by-side with Clark as associate head coach.
"There is no doubt that working with Tom Billups over the past 20 years has been a blessing," Clark said.
However, the Clark Era of prosperity isn't defined by the numbers and the accolades. As Driscoll aptly put it: "The best quality of a head coach is if they can make their athletes better every day, and not just in their sport. Jack just uses rugby as a medium to create special young people that go on to do amazing things. That's what a championship coach does."
In addition to coaching players to the heights of their athletic potential on the pitch, Clark takes responsibility for giving his student-athletes skills to take into the world beyond sport – skills that will help them achieve high levels of success.
"He has a combination of elements that translates to a singular type of coach – one that knows the game technically, and can communicate and connect with his players," former U.S. National Team captain and Golden Bear Blaine Scully said. "All of that is grounded in a fundamental stake in that person's development as well. His ability to coach the game at the level he coaches at, and to impact the individual in the way he does, while being an ever-present influence in their life, is fundamentally rare."
"He coaches life through rugby, effectively, rather than just being your standard rugby coach," former Golden Bear captain and current international rugby player Russell Webb said.
Clark's unique ability to simultaneously coach rugby and life has been proven successful for generations of student-athletes. He's influenced professional athletes, CEOs, doctors and lawyers, all who credit Clark with teaching skills that helped them reach the top of their fields beyond the rugby training paddock.
"I don't think I'd have as successful of a career post-Cal if it wasn't for coach Clark, and I don't think I would be as good of a man or individual if it wasn't for him," Webb said. "He's an incredible coach, but he's much more than that because he's mentored a lot of amazing men to being incredible people – and he is one himself."
Just as remarkable is Clark's ardent support for Cal as an institution. No greater example of the pride he has for the Blue & Gold lies in his signature phrase, "they're ours" when acknowledging the successes of fellow Golden Bears in their careers beyond Berkeley. Yearbooks and photos dating back to the earliest days of Cal rugby fill his office, and he continuously shares the stories of the past with his current teams to instill in them the same regard and passion for Cal that he carries with him.
"This is a unique place," Clark said. "I feel the richness of being a part of something that's been going on a long time. If you worked somewhere where you don't have a connection, on the difficult days you'd think 'why am I doing this?' I've never felt that way here because – well the answer is so obvious – it's because of love of the place and the people."
Clark is a Golden Bear through and through, and his 40 years of service to Cal as a head coach and mentor of Cal rugby men is the greatest testament to that.
Jack Clark. He's ours.
