Coach Clark needs a ride

I grew up in a small town and loved every minute of it. I hated being inside. I loved everything about the outdoors. I enjoyed playing and competing in any type of game you can imagine. I loved fishing and hunting and cutting wood but, most of all, I loved football. Other than my father the most important person who influenced my life was my football coach. That's why I wanted to go into the educational field so I would have the opportunity to influence young people the way my coach did for me.

I actually started coaching when I was in school at Wingate University. The football coach at the local high school found me one day in the dorm yard kicking a football and asked me if I would be interested in coaching his middle school team. From that day forward I knew exactly what I wanted to do for the rest of my life. I coached for the next 27 years in North Carolina and would like to think that I made a positive difference in the lives of young people. I coached a number of different sports (both girls and boys) but mainly baseball and football. There was never one single football season that I wasn’t coaching from 1979 through 2013. To this day I feel like I would still be doing the same thing had my life not changed in July 2009.

I retired from coaching in North Carolina and accepted the athletic director’s position along with the head football coaching position at the fourth largest school in the state of South Carolina. My forte was taking bad programs and resurrecting them into championship caliber teams. The first season that we were there we went 8-4 and made the state playoffs. The second season was less than 30 days from starting when I was told that I needed to have a neck fusion due to some problems with tingling and numbness in my extremities. The neurologist assured me everything would be fine and I would be in the hospital for one or two nights and return to normalcy after a few weeks. I walked into the hospital in Spartanburg, South Carolina, at 9:00 AM on July 1 and woke up after surgery completely paralyzed. My life as I knew it prior to the surgery had most likely come to an end.

I was 49 years old when this happened. I am 58 years old now and, after nine years of physical and occupational therapy, I am still an incomplete quadriplegic. I can take about 25 decent steps with a walker but I still cannot take a shower by myself, get my clothes on in less than 30 minutes, go to the bathroom on my own, and I will never play golf or cut wood again in my life in all probability. My family has had to suffer right along with me and their lives changed forever as well. Not being able to be independent was something that I had never experienced but have since that very day in July, 2009.

Most recently, I suffered through a broken leg after a fall in August. I guess it was then that I began to realize that I could continue to try to get stronger but as age continues its progression the chance is that I may never get better. For that reason and for the need for me to become a more independent person and to help my family to not have to do everything for me, I have decided to take another direction in my rehabilitation. I am going to get a power wheelchair so I do not have to have someone to push me anywhere and everywhere I go. At the same time, I will be attempting to get a vehicle that is handicap accessible which will allow me to do things without my wife and son having to do it all.

The cost involved with the specialized vehicle and handicap conversion kit is unbelievable.  Not including the vehicle, the conversion kit is almost $30,000 by itself.  The teaching and coaching occupations at the high school level did not prepare me for what is needed. I’m asking for your help in trying to make my life and, more importantly my family’s life, more bearable. I’m asking you to help me on this journey and there’s no way I can repay you other than to simply say thank you!