David Clark ’86: Return of a diehard Raider

10/31/2022

What really drives David Clark ’86, Ransom Everglades’ new Chief Operating Officer and Interim Head of the Upper School, is evident the moment a visitor walks into his office in Cameron Hall. A business card holder sits at the front of Clark’s desk, prominently displayed. Instead of cards identifying Clark and his job title, the business cards are imprinted with two words in capital letters: “YOU MATTER.”

Clark shares the cards with students, and asks them to pass them on.

“To help others get the most out of their experience, that is really, really important,” he said. “I want to help build this community to a place where people really love being in school. I want kids to say: I don’t want to go home because I love being here so much.”

When he arrived as a high school junior to Ransom Everglades School, his nervousness was assuaged by the proximity of his grandparents, who lived less than a mile from the upper school on Charles Avenue. Clark fondly remembers spirited family gatherings at their white-and-green frame house and stirring Sunday services at nearby Christ Episcopal Church. (The historic house of worship was founded in 1901 by his great grandparents and other Bahamian immigrants.)

Yet by the time he graduated two years later, Ransom Everglades had become his new home away from home. He excelled in his classes, built relationships with teachers and peers, starred on the football team and set school records in track before heading to Dartmouth College. He came to school early, stayed late, and loved it.

His return to RE after 23 years at Pine Crest School in Fort Lauderdale, where Clark had climbed to Head of School on the Boca Raton campus, has left his heart swelling.

“I am coming back to be who I am,” Clark said from behind his desk shortly before the start of the school year. “I don’t have to be anyone else. 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, and that’s Paul C. Ransom’s words right there … It’s a blessing, a true blessing for me.”

As COO, Clark is overseeing the school’s athletics, admission, advancement and business offices while working closely with Interim Head of School Rachel Rodriguez. As Interim Head of the Upper School, he has been actively engaged with RE students and families. He also stands ready to welcome the next head of school, expected to be in place by next summer.

He knows some parents will see him as a devoted alumnus. Many alumni remember him as a fellow classmate, teacher or coach. Others may be inspired seeing a Black man in leadership. He accepts all of it. At the core, he said, they all want the same thing.

“People want to know,” he said, “that there is someone there looking after the best interest of their child.”

The Influencers

Clark knows he was shaped by many people, many opportunities, many moments. His mother. Football. Various mentors. The community at Christ Episcopal Church. Ransom Everglades wasn’t the only influence, but his arrival to the school changed the arc of his life in a magnificent way.

He started tenth grade at Miami Killian High, where he excelled in the classroom and on the field. Though he spent many childhood weekends at his grandparents’ house, he knew nothing about Ransom Everglades; a private school was simply not on his family’s radar. When his high school football coach accepted a job at Ransom Everglades, the coach urged Clark and several teammates to apply.

Clark and his buddies showed up at the RE middle school on a Saturday to take the SSAT. He and teammate Rob DePriest ’86 – who was hired this summer as Director of Security at RE – performed well on the test, and both received good news from RE.

Clark’s mother had to leave school to take care of her mother after her eighth-grade year at George Washington Carver Middle School, where she had met Clark’s father. Her own father had been a garbage collector, and her mother cleaned houses. She landed a position at Eastern Airlines and worked hard, winning employee of the month multiple times, and she wanted her children to walk through any doors opened to them.

So when her son was invited to join the 11th grade at Ransom Everglades, she saw it not as an option to be considered, but an opportunity that couldn’t be passed up.

Recalled her son: “She looked at me and said: ‘You don’t have a choice. You’re going.’”

Life at RE and Beyond

His first day of school was also his first day on the upper school campus. The transition wasn’t easy, but he befriended players on the football team, worked hard to get acclimated, and focused on the positive – which wasn’t difficult. He remembers being mesmerized by the colorful cannon and glistening bay. He learned from his new peers, and they learned from him. Soon, they were picking him up for events and parties, and inviting him for overnight visits.

“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

Meanwhile, he invested significant time and energy into his studies and activities. He recalls the late Jerry Exum, then math 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 Jeff 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.”

Back

RE founder Paul Ransom, circa 1903

News Detail

David Clark ’86: Return of a diehard Raider

The Influencers

Life at RE and Beyond

Plotting his return

Middle School

Upper School