As he would admit to you, or as you could probably tell by looking at him, he’s not the typical 5-foot-2-inch college co-ed with blonde hair and a smile that goes for miles that you may see on the sidelines of some college football teams now-a-days.
He stands in at a shade over 6 feet tall, and probably weighs in on the heavy side of 200 pounds. And he is the guy that Coach Urban Meyer sees every time he turns around on the field. Jon Clark is the wire guy.
Clark, a graduate student assistant with the football program from Arcanum, Ohio, is the jack-of-all-trades on the team. He began his career at the University by graduating with a degree in education, and says his original plan was to coach high school football and teach.
As the graduate assistant, Clark takes care of any administrative duties known to man, ranging from getting equipment in the right place at the right time to assisting with recruiting in some capacities, jobs that he says he loves to do.
“On the field, it’s helping Coach Meyer with the cords,” Clark said. “On game days, those are my busiest days. I do wake-up calls, set up the recruiting tents, get the recruits in here, and just make sure everything is done for game days. I’m also in charge of the equipment guys and student managers.
“During the week I’m in the office, helping out with recruits. We e-mail recruits every day, I help evaluate some of the tapes recruits send in, basically make sure everything is where it needs to be at all times.”
But, the most visible job Clark does is perhaps the most intriguing. To the casual on-looker, it may seem as though Clark’s job as the wire guy is quite trivial. To him though, and others in the program, he is essential. He keeps the man happy, something some of the players are grateful for.
Now, Clark says, there is a trust factor present that allows both Coach Meyer and him to be comfortable with each other, a much-needed element when they spend so much time two feet from each other.
“Part of being his right-hand man was doing the cords,” Clark said. “He trusts me, I know what is expected, I know he will be up and down those sidelines. I have a good feeling of what he does, and it’s a comfortable thing for him, he knows me, he trusts me.”
Clark has been with the program since his earliest days at the university, and worked with the team in a minimal capacity through former Coach Gary Blackney’s final years. When Meyer took the program over two winters ago, Clark was asked to stay on and work directly with the new coach.
“When he first came in, I was supposed to be the head student manager,” Clark said. “There’s been new life into the system with Coach Meyer’s arrival. I worked under Blackney, but I really didn’t see what was going on. Here, he [Meyer] has shown it to me, brought a new lifeblood to football here, and shown everyone what it’s like to be a winner here.”
There is a lighter side to the job Clark does, as he details the ribbing he gets and some horror stories he has from past games.
“I get teased a lot, because you watch television and you see these head coaches and these girls following them,” Clark said.
“And he says ‘I turn around and I see you.’ I say, ‘hey, I can’t help it.’
“You have to worry about guys standing on cords, because that limits what he can do and where he can go. If he wants to go talk to an official, a player, I’ve got to go with them. The worst thing we’ve had, is that we’ve gotten cords tangled up, and he turns around and says ‘What’s going on.’ The very first home game we had (last year vs. Buffalo), there was a knot in the cords, and we actually had to unhook him and we lost communication for a little bit. Being the first home game, I was nervous, I was very nervous about it.”
