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On September 30th, while out doing what he loved most, Marshall Clark had a severe heart attack and passed on. Will Kraemer, 2001 XC State Champ while at Saratoga HS, shares with us how Marshall touched his life and all those around him.
You know what? Coaches don't get enough attention as they should... I mean, really, if you think about it, coaches get overlooked all the time. Sure, there is always an appreciation of a coach that coaches a great team or sustains a "powerhouse" program. But in the long run, coaches don't get the recognition they deserve.
There is a line from a movie that I like to watch way too much - Without Limits about Steve Prefontaine. Bill Bowerman is speaking with his wife about Steve's (I don't know if it is appropriate to call him that, but oh well) front running in high school. He says "...he can get away with it in high school, but at the international level it is a disaster." Mrs. Bowerman smugly replies " Well, tell him not to do it, isn't that what coaches do?" It was funny at the time. But now that I look back at it, coaches do so much more. Throughout high school I went through a couple coaches. They were good, and they taught me everything I thought I needed to know about running. Until it was time to transfer. Basically, I went and met with the Los Altos High School coach. He is a great guy. He is young and still competing. Then my mom insisted that I go look at Saratoga High School. Not my idea seeing as how my girlfriend at the time went to Los Altos. I told my mom, "I don't like Saratoga, because the coach is old." Thank god my mom made me go there...
Marshall (he insisted on being called Marshall, which was weird coming from military school) gave me so much more than I could have ever asked for from anyone. A very quiet man, I remember finishing our first meet and Coach simply saying "Good job." That was it. A little strange I thought. But Coach helped me realize my potential. A state title was a dream, but Marshall made it an actual opportunity and even a reality. Marshall was a person that would never demand anything. But he could receive anything he wanted. A person everybody knows. No one could ever say a bad thing about him. Selflessness is something I now strive for because of him.
I recently went to running camp and was talking with Jeff Hongo, an alumni of Saratoga High School, who later went on to coach with Marshall. He told me, coaching was Marshall's life, it was what he lived for. But the first year Jeff came to coach, Marshall let him take the reigns of his varsity team. One day Jeff was running a workout with the team when Marshall approached him. Marshall called him over and said basically "Jeff, you still got some miles in those legs, don't waste them." That was what got Jeff into running again.
Coincidentally, that was Marshall's "first" last year of coaching. It happened to be 16 years ago. Marshall was always ready to quit but when he saw the potential in the kids he was coaching he couldn't bring himself to leave. He simply loved the sport.
There is not enough I can say about a man like Marshall. There are no words to describe him. But, I hope that coaches will strive to be like Marshall, because he is the pinnacle of coaching. There is no better, there never will be.
Thank You For Everything Marshall. You will be forever missed.
-Will Kraemer
Saratoga High School '02
Dan Cruz, JC & Prep Editor at CalTrack.com, also shares more memories of Marshall as a coach, mentor, and friend:
Article by Dan Cruz on CalTrack.com