San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Clark beloved by teammates in college, too
It wasn’t just Dwight Clark’s teammates from the 49ers who loved him.
There were also devoted friends who played with him at Clemson.
Among them was quarterback Steve Fuller. And offensive linemen Joe and Jeff Bostic. And tight end Jeff Bray.
The four men had planned to meet June 12 in Atlanta, fly to Salt Lake City, take a connecting flight to Kalispell, Mont., and then find Clark, living nearby in Whitefish, to say goodbye.
Fuller had recently texted to get an address for Clark, who spent his final days in hospice care, but hadn’t heard back from his friend of 43 years. No matter. Fuller, Bray and the Bostic brothers were determined to see Clark a final time, even if their 2,000-mile journey netted a two-minute visit.
“We were going to get in a rental car and go find him,” Fuller said. “That was the extent of our plan.”
“The guys were always somewhat jealous of him because he was a handsome guy without an ounce of ego involved there. He was your man’s man. He was James Dean in a pair of shoulder pads is what he was.”
Steve Fuller, on Dwight Clark, shown above with his parents before a 1978 Clemson home game
Said Joe Bostic: “I just wanted to say goodbye to him. I wanted to hug him. I wanted to tell him I loved him.”
That never happened: Monday, eight days before the scheduled visit from his Clemson teammates, Clark died at 61 about three years after being diagnosed with ALS, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease.
Clark’s death is a blow to the Bay Area, where his iconic grab, The Catch, made him a touchstone to a generation of fans. But it’s reverberated beyond the region and rocked teammates in addition to the close-knit 49ers who rallied around him after his diagnosis.
Clark’s college and NFL career couldn’t have been much different. The future Pro Bowler had just 33 catches in three seasons at Clemson — but the 10th-round pick in 1979 was beloved by teammates at both places because his personality didn’t change with his circumstances.
That is, whether he was a bit player or a big deal, Clark was, well, Clark. In the NFL, his teammates called him “Hercules,” and he was also a largerthan-life figure at Clemson. “From the moment he walked on campus, until the time he became an NFL star, Dwight was absolutely the same guy,” said Fuller, who had an eight-year NFL career. “He was a really cool guy; the kind of guy that everyone liked immediately. The guys were always somewhat jealous of him because he was a handsome guy without an ounce of ego involved there. He was your man’s man. He was James Dean in a pair of shoulder pads is what he was.”
Joe Bostic, who played 10 seasons in the NFL, remembers Clark as a full-of-life force who was too busy moving to mope about his puny role at Clemson. If he wasn’t practicing, he was playing golf, or intramural basketball or serving as the life of the party at a campus get-together. On Monday, Bostic was working out at a gym in Greensboro, N.C., when he got a text message that Clark had died.
“I was walking around the damn gym and I was in a funk,” Bostic said. “You know something’s really bad, but we’re talking about Dwight Clark. And if there’s a guy that could wriggle his way out of it some way or another, it was Dwight Clark. … It’s just hard to imagine Dwight Clark, at 61, gone.”
No player spent more time as Clark’s teammate than defensive lineman Jim Stuckey, who was with him for three seasons (1976-78) at Clemson and seven (1980-86) with the 49ers.
And it gives Stuckey a unique perspective on how Clark was unaffected by his rise from obscurity.
In the NFL, Stuckey appreciated how Clark reflexively credited his teammates when asked about The Catch: Clark noted the 28-27 win over the Cowboys in the NFC Championship Game on Jan. 10, 1982, was secured by key plays from cornerback Eric Wright, defensive lineman Lawrence Pillers and Stuckey, who had the game-sealing fumble recovery.
At Clemson, Stuckey appreciated how Clark, who had 11 catches as a senior, used his hulking 6-foot-4 frame to do thankless run-blocking on a talent-stuffed team that went 11-1 his senior season. Wide receiver Jerry Butler, the No. 5 pick in the 1979 draft, was a first-team All-American and Clark was an afterthought. “I didn’t get to catch too many,” Clark said in 1985, “but I got to watch Jerry catch them from the other side of the field.”
Said Stuckey: “Dwight was just the consummate team player. And that never changed. He was such a funloving and engaging guy, but there was always a strong work ethic. He worked so hard at his craft, and that’s something Bill Walsh saw in him.” Walsh never would have seen it if not for Fuller, a firstround pick in 1979, whom Walsh traveled to South Carolina to work out before the draft.
Clark, Fuller and Bray lived together in a house their senior year, and it was Clark who answered when Walsh called to speak with Fuller. The rest has become part of 49ers lore: Walsh asked Clark to attend the workout to catch passes, and Clark had a magical performance that led Walsh to select him with the No. 249 pick.
In his telling, Fuller adds delightful details. He says Clark and Walsh actually spoke several times before he even connected with the 49ers’ head coach. In fact, Fuller says, by the time he talked to Walsh about the workout, Clark had ironed out all the particulars and, possibly, learned Walsh’s travel itinerary and the name of his third-grade teacher.
“Dwight had the whole thing set up before I even knew about it,” Fuller said. “That was typical Dwight. He never met a stranger. He and coach Walsh just hit it off from the start.”
And Clark never met an ex-teammate. Joe Bostic, who spent his first nine seasons with the St. Louis Cardinals, laughs when he recalls the joyful pregame reunions with Clark when he faced the 49ers.
Clark would greet him with a “Big Joe!” exclamation, might compliment him on his uniform (“Looking good!”) and generally make a huge fuss.
“I mean, I almost had to look and remember we had different color jerseys on,” Bostic said, laughing. “It would have been the same thing he was saying to me in 1977 and 1978.”
In April, the sight of Clark, the man who radiated joy, took Bostic’s breath away.
Clark, who couldn’t travel, asked Joe and his brother, Jeff, who had a 14-year NFL career, to present him for induction into the South Carolina Football Hall of Fame. Before the Bostics spoke, a video of Clark in a wheelchair was played for those in attendance.
“The way he talked; the way he looked — it was a gut punch for me,” Bostic said. “I don’t even remember what I said because it knocked me off my feet.”
Bostic prefers to draw on a memory from 44 years ago. He met Clark in December 1974 when he was playing on a North Carolina prep all-star team that was practicing at Garinger High in Charlotte before facing the best players from South Carolina.
Clark, who attended Garinger but wasn’t selected for the game, knew both he and Bostic would be attending Clemson, and he introduced himself to his future teammate after a practice.
“I saw this tall, lanky kid, his hair flopping around, smiling from ear to ear and he comes to meet me,” Bostic said. “… Maybe two minutes into the conversation Dwight looked at me and said, ‘Yeah, I guess I wasn’t good enough to get picked for this all-star team.’ And I knew then. I was kind of like ‘Man, I like this guy.’ ”
As it turns out, Joe Bostic, like so many teammates, grew to love Dwight Clark.
And Bostic wishes he could have traveled from his home in North Carolina, to Georgia, to Utah, to Montana, to tell him that one last time.