Bradenton Christian alum Josh Clark ends college career with Ivy League football title at Dartmouth
MANATEE -- College football's top prize, the Division-I national championship, will be decided Monday.
And while there isn't a Manatee County connection with the players in that game, the area did snag a championship earlier this year with Bradenton Christian alum Josh Clark.
Clark was part of a large senior class that provided Dartmouth with a record-setting Ivy League title.
However, the program's 18th Ivy League crown didn't come as an outright championship.
Rather, the Big Green shared the title with Harvard and Penn. It was the first time there was a split championship since 1982, when the three programs also shared it.
The Ivy League championship also was Dartmouth's first since 1996, which Clark said was because of 17 senior starters who had changed the culture around the program. There were even fifth-year seniors who came back, focused on winning the program's 18th Ivy League title.
"People knew we were going to be special from the very start," Clark said. "And really our only goal was to win the championship. Anything else would've been a disappointment."
The Ivy Choice
Before Clark's college career culminated with an Ivy League title, he was a mammoth offensive lineman with speed and technique at Bradenton Christian. It garnered Clark interest from colleges all over. The military academies arrived in Bradenton to take a peek. Then the bigger Division-I programs like Missouri were in the mix.
But it was when Dartmouth decided to take a look that BCS head coach Allan Gerber advised Clark to give them a chance.
Clark said his college recruiter, Sammy McCorkle, a Dartmouth assistant coach, sold him on the outdoor living in Hanover, N.H.
"It was just a natural attraction, both coach, the kid, the school," Gerber said. "He went up on his official visit. It was on Martin Luther King weekend. And what was really alarming to me was the fact that at 7:45 in the morning on Tuesday after Martin Luther King break, the head coach from Dartmouth, Buddy Teevens, was waiting outside my office. And he made no bones about the fact that Josh was their No. 1 offensive line recruit that year."
Resilience
Clark bided his time at Dartmouth before maneuvering himself into a starting role as his senior season loomed. But disaster was striking at the wrong time for the 6-foot-5, 315-pounder.
Stomach ulcers, which forced Clark to spend a week in a hospital last spring, returned at the beginning of fall camp.
"I finally had a chance to start," he said.
But Clark's worry was for naught as he battled through the ailment to start every game.
"It was just too important of a season, and I knew this was probably going to be my last season to get to play football," Clark said. "So it was (fine) to deal with a little bit of pain."
The last hurrah
Dartmouth's quest for a historic season began in earnest with a 6-0 start, which included a 41-20 drubbing of Penn.
Then the reigning Ivy League champions, Harvard, stood in Dartmouth's way. Clark said he used a photo of Harvard's championship ring from last season as his phone's background to give him the motivation to take down the champs.
"We knew that was going to be our Super Bowl ring (game)," Clark said.
The Big Green, though, fell 14-13. That narrow defeat meant Dartmouth needed help. Penn became Dartmouth's biggest ally with a 35-25 victory over Harvard two weeks later.
That set the trio up for a memorable Saturday in late November. Both Penn and Harvard won their final games comfortably, while Dartmouth was in a tussle with Princeton at home. The Big Green were tied 10-10 when Kyle Bramble caught a screen pass and raced in for a 12-yard touchdown with 24 seconds remaining.
Clark was a lead blocker on the championship-winning play.
"If you're going to go out, that's 100 percent the way that you always dream about," said Clark, a history major set to graduate in June. "Even when you're playing football as a kid in the yard, you want to win the championship on the last play. And that's how you always remember your time playing football. While it's sad to be done, I can be happy that's how it ended."
This story was originally published January 9, 2016 at 3:32 PM with the headline "Bradenton Christian alum Josh Clark ends college career with Ivy League football title at Dartmouth ."