I remember him well. Very athletic player from Nebraska City (I believe) that hit a ton. Click on the link for a nice video piece featuring Clark's playing days at NU.
Clark
Clark
Anybody remember fmr. Husker saftey Bret Clark?
- Thread starter MAG
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Excellent safety. Had a nice stint in the USFL and NFL before a knee injury ended it.
Great guy too. Could hit a golf ball a freaking mile.
Great guy too. Could hit a golf ball a freaking mile.
Watching highlights from that era also shows how much the game has changed. In the '83 game vs. Miami, Clark was the only player on NU's D who had a significant NFL career. Mike Knox was on the Broncos roster for a year. Skow was a backup, and I'm not sure he played that night. You wouldn't see a team with so little NFL talent in the playoffs these days.
If I recall, he played a lot of slow pitch softball after football. He travelled and made a little money hitting the crap out of a softball.
I have always enjoyed the "where are they now" stories on former Huskers. I wish more writers would do that. One would think that in the off season with all of the air time and column space to fill that SOMEBODY would be smart enough to feed the Husker appetite with stories on some of the guys from the past who HAVEN'T been heard much from.
One of the best for sure but the G.O.A.T Husker safety IMO is Mike Brown. Brown is on the Mt. Rushmore of all-time Husker greats.
Wouldn't surprise me. Played a few rounds golf with Clark and he drove the ball out of sight.
One of those rounds was a scramble in which his drive ended up pin-high, about five yards from the green, on a 400-yard par 4. I chipped to within about six inches to win the "closest to the pin in 2" flag prize. Of course I told everyone who wasn't in our group how I striped a wedge from 120 yards and backed it right up to the hole!
Way too often when you play with a big hitter like that it's not worth it, because they are full of themselves. Not so with Clark - very humble and quiet, and a great guy to be around.
Brett Clark was a beast. I grew up in Nebraska and watched him Play in high school. Side fact, Clark went to high school and played with two other Huskers (Mitch Krenk and Greg Orton) both of whom also played in the NFL. Three future NFL players on a Class B football and team and they were still merely average as I recall. Terrible high school coach.
Bret was on the 1983 defense that was like a sieve. Almost everyone off that unit returned in 1984 and NU had the top-rated defense in the country.
Its odd this thread got brought back up from out of nowhere. I will add to it though. Isn't Bret Clark the guy who traded jerseys with another safety at halftime of the Miami game? That was kind of funny.
No, that was McCashland and Dave Burke. It might have worked if Burke would have shaved off his mustache
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That was mildly embarrassing. For me it telegraphed "We know our D can't hang with you unless we resort to trickery."
During that same time frame, Nebraska City also had Scott Porter (FB) and Chad Daffer(LB) that played at Nebraska. Definitely a loaded HS team.
I don't recall him playing in the pros. Brian Davis was another white corner from that era that played several years for the Skins across from Darrell Green. Supposedly, Davis was faster than Green.
But not everyone in the league was flush. In Tampa, as the league was voting to suspend operations for '86, the Hillsborough County Sheriff's office confiscated weights, equipment and souvenirs from the Bandits' offices to satisfy a $150,000 judgment awarded former safety Bret Clark, now with the Atlanta Falcons. Clark had received the loot in an arbitration settlement for money owed to him by the late John Bassett, the team's original owner.
LINk
LINk
Brian Davis was really fast, but I don't know about Green fast. Those were the days when Osborne would go to the JUCOs and pick up Brian Davis, Mike Rozier, Bruce Pickens, and others that were immediate starters and played in the NFL. When he took one, they were can't miss.
It was Mike McCashland #2 and Dave Clark #33. They tried this stunt to get more speed up closer to the LOS. McCashland was the Monster postion and Dave was CB. The thing that gave the ruse away was Clark had a moustache and shoulda shaved it before hand.
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Darrell Green was the documented fastest dude in the NFL during his career
I went to high school with Brett in Nebraska City. Easily the best all around athlete I have ever known. I remember him putting up something like 46 points in a basketball game. No 3 pointers back then, but the majority of those shots were from downtown. He was a tremendous high school quarterback for us as well. Track star the list goes on ...Was also a genuinely nice guy.
I went too fast and and it was Dave Burke. Oops. The problem was when McBride with Osborne's approval decided to play in Zone all year due to all of the passing teams we were gonna play we decided to go away from man coverage. Enter 84, all 11 on the D were back from 83 and went back to man coverage and ended 84 ranked number 1 in total D.
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I think he made a great catch on the bounce pass left by Fryar against OU.
Yes he was and was sad what happened top him, but it's all a risk everytime you step on the field.
