In his eyes, his father is The Man.
Come Saturday, Utah Tech defensive assistant Jamison Clark gets a chance to face his dad, BYU tight ends coach Steve Clark, in real football when the Trailblazers take on the Cougars in LaVell Edwards Stadium. It won’t be a living room video game. It won’t be practice or a hobby that binds the two. It will be a matter of clashing flesh and bones — college football. The real deal.
“I’ve been in this profession a long time and have known a lot of coaches who got out because it was not for their wives. The travel, the hours, the losing, criticism and even hatred sent their way after losses. It’s not for everybody.” — BYU tight ends coach Steve Clark
It will be a glorious chunk of a family dream realized by father and son.
Well, kind of.
The father is extremely proud of his son.
But Steve is not looking forward to BYU’s game with Utah Tech. “He is probably looking forward to going up against me, but I’m not looking forward to going against him,” said Steve.
Why?
“I can’t speak for all coaches, I can only speak for myself,” said the father. “This profession tears me apart and losing almost kills me. So either I’m going to win and he’s going to have that feeling (losing) or I’m going to lose and have that feeling, you know? There’s no winner here for me.”
Steve and Jamison are similar in that they are not very tall in physical stature. Well, Steve is 5-foot-3 and Jamison is 5-11. Yet they stand tall among giant men. They exude undying love for players and enthusiastically serve them. Their love for the game just seeps out of them. They are kind human beings, polite, determined and humble.
Steve was 32 with four kids when his wife, Suzanne, told him to pursue his dream to coach football and quit his job selling shoes. He has moved 16 times since that decision. Jamison and his wife want to follow his path.
When Jamison and his wife, Savannah, got married, Steve and Suzanne made a point of sitting down with them to orient Savannah as to what was in store for them.
“I’ve been in this profession a long time and have known a lot of coaches who got out because it was not for their wives,” Steve said. “The travel, the hours, the losing, criticism and even hatred sent their way after losses. It’s not for everybody.”
Still, this BYU-Utah Tech game is a milestone for the son.
Jamison Clark and New York Jets QB Zach Wilson are close friends, a bond formed when both were at BYU. Back in the day, they had watched film of Aaron Rodgers and Tom Brady together. Last year, during Wilson’s rookie season, Wilson zeroed in on Rodgers, whom he played against in the preseason. “Zach said he was able to meet him and talk to him and in talking to him I remember discussing how cool that was to play against his hero.”
A week ago last Monday, Jamison’s wife, Savannah, said the same thing, how cool it was that in two weeks he would get to play against his hero, his dad, Steve. “It is very cool and I’m humbled and very grateful to be a part of it,” said Jamison.
Jamison worked his way into coaching as a student at BYU in 2017 when he returned from a mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints to Argentina. He began hanging around the football team. He was never really hired officially at first, he sort of just showed up.
Slipping into coaching
Jamison “Jay” did everything he could to squeeze into the football office, telling then offensive coordinator Ty Detmer he would do anything he needed, make copies, run errands and pick up stuff. Soon, everyone kept loading him up with duties and he had a job.
When Detmer’s replacement, Jeff Grimes, arrived, he didn’t wait for a job interview. Jamison just greeted Grimes by announcing, “Hi, coach Grimes. I’m Jamison Clark, and I’m your student assistant. Let me know what I can do.” Grimes just went along with it and Jamison continued on.
Jay recalls a moment when his dad was working with Grimes that epitomizes his love for his father. Grimes rotated among his coaches the opportunity to make a speech before the team got on the bus to go to games. Back in 2018, Grimes asked Steve to say a few words before the game with Hawaii. The Cougars had just come off two bad losses at Washington and Utah State, and freshman Zach Wilson would get his first career start.
All season long, coach Clark would sneak into the huddle in practices. Then he would sprint with Matt Bushman and Dallin Holker to their positions in the formation to line up for a play.
Steve said to the team, “You may or may not have seen what I’ve been doing all year, sneaking into the huddle with your guys. The reason I’ve been doing that is that I’ll never know what it’s like to stand in a college football huddle, never know what it’s like to put on the pads and run out of the tunnel in LaVell Edwards Stadium to go make a play.
“What I found is there is power in the huddle and there’s power in being able to break the huddle with everybody having the same goal of scoring a touchdown and getting a first down or whatever. There is a lot of power in that.”
When Clark finished talking, he asked everyone to say the traditional cadence, “One, two, three, break.” And everyone got on the bus. Grimes came up to Clark, put his arm around him and thanked him for his words. Then Grimes said, “Now we’ve got a problem. Our starting quarterback was so touched, he has tears in his eyes before his first start ever.”
BYU went out and scored a season-high 49 points on a good Hawaii team. “That’s something I’ll never forget,” said Jamison.
Son of a coach
Back in 2012 at SUU, Jamison had a tradition of playing catch with his dad during warmups before kickoff. Right before a game with No. 1-ranked Eastern Washington in Cedar City, Steve went out for a pass. Jamison threw an over-the-shoulder pass, which his dad caught, but the laces on the ball caught him on the nose on the way down and split his nose open.
“So, 15 minutes before kickoff, he was in the locker room with the team doctors and trainers getting his nose together. Later that day, SUU beat the No. 1 team in the country and it must have been good luck. He’s never let me forget it.”
Jamison has idolized his father his entire life, and a big chunk of that centers on football. That his dad was a coach opened up a complete universe for the son. “He was my hero growing up and he still is even to this day. I wanted to be like him. I grew up around football programs.”
Steve Clark’s love of football has been lifelong. His family had front-row season tickets at BYU games for the past 50 years. A quiet introvert, Steve’s idea of a relaxing Friday night is hanging around with his wife watching BYU or the Denver Broncos with a dog at his feet.
But he’s kind of a dichotomy of a man. While he is an introvert, he is also the trigger of a lot of fun and laughter amongst BYU’s coaches, staff and players. He’s always got a one-liner, a quick comeback, a tease that in a fun way singles out somebody and brings laughs. “He’s a good actor,” said Jamison. “I think that is what it is.”
The son sees his father as very good at what he does, be it Xs and Os or recruiting or relating to players. “He is an absolute introvert. He goes for runs and does crossword puzzles, but what he loves so much is football. He’s able to kind of flip a switch, go into team rooms, and get to know 20- or 21-year-old guys and have fun and make people laugh.”
Because he is not a tall man, his son says his dad has always had a motivating chip on his shoulder to prove himself, and Jamison believes he’s done a good job of that.
“I’ve seen it. I’ve had to apply that to my life as well because I’m also not the biggest man out there. I’m out there with the defensive ends and I’ve seen that the players that he coaches and the people he’s around respond to the love that he shows them and the compassion that he shows them.
“So when he does flip the switch and starts yelling at a guy like Isaac Rex to get going, they respond because they know it comes from a place of love. He’s able to command the room because of his personality and he’s one of the biggest personalities in the room. But physically he’s never been as big or tall as a guy like Rex.”
For Steve, he understands coaching is a hard profession in which to advance. When Jay received an offer to coach at Utah Tech almost two years ago, the call came on a Wednesday and he was getting married that Friday.
Jay told his parents he felt he should turn down the job because of the marriage in a few days — he needed to focus on that right now. Steve disagreed. It led to a very heated discussion. “It got pretty hot,” said Steve.
“To have a job offer in St. George where you grew up, three hours from home and family in Provo? You don’t turn that down, you go for it,” said Suzanne.
Steve drilled into his son that day how hard it was to get a Division I coaching job.
“It was a no-brainer,” said the dad.
Emersion to the grind
When his father was offensive coordinator at Southern Utah, Jamison was in high school, and the last two weeks of summer break were the beginning of SUU fall football camp.
“I’d spend the last two weeks of my summer vacation with him at the dorms. We lived in St. George and he was in Cedar City. Those were long nights and early mornings,” Jamison recalled. “Dad said he was going to stay in the dorms with the players and he let me come along after I kept begging him to let me come. I just wanted to be around football, everything from the walkthroughs, film sessions, scrimmages and actual games. That’s what I craved growing up as a kid.”
Steve has worked/coached at BYU three times and at Utah twice. He has been the offensive coordinator and QB coach at Weber State and SUU, and the passing game coordinator at Saint Mary’s. Currently, Steve is the tight ends coach at BYU, a place Jamison said his father has loved all his life and has wanted to return to so he could be with his family. He is the oldest of nine children who grew up in Provo.
Jamison said his father’s advice for getting into coaching included this quote: “The players would never care how much they knew until they knew how much they cared. Or the other way around, they would never care how much I knew until they knew how much I cared.”
He took that to mean a coach has to be one of the players’ biggest fans.
Jamison’s tried to copy his dad. “I heard a good quote a couple of weeks ago that says to plagiarize your life, and I think the whole time I’ve been in this career, I’ve been trying to plagiarize what I’ve seen; its probably a thing I’ve tried to mimic, be like my dad.” He calls often and asks for advice, for answers and how to handle situations.
“He’s been awesome. I hope that I’m able to become half the man, father, husband and coach he has been, and if I do, I’ll be a very successful man.”
A father’s touch
Steve says he’s learned over the years that the greatest asset in coaching is building relationships. It may be the most important thing.
In this, his son has talent, a gift. He knows how to network and get along with people.
“He has an old soul,” said his mother. “He’s always been able to talk to people, to adults. One time at a basketball game, we found him talking to an official during the game. But that is Jay.”
Steve remembers when his son was 11 and lost a Junior Jazz basketball game. “He came home, went to his room, tore up his bed, ripped things off the wall, just completely wrecked the place he was so upset.
“I had to tell him that that’s not how we handle losing,” said Steve. “But inside I was really happy. It made me feel good that he was that way.”
Jay still holds a record in Cooperstown, where he played in the Little League World Series. He had 11 walks in four games. He also has two giant titanium rods surgically implanted in his back from a childhood battle with scoliosis. He was Steve and Suzanne’s sick child. He always battled one thing or another.
His son is driven, another great trait.
“While he was tough to discipline as a child because he’d just say, ‘Whatever,’ and go his way, he struggled academically because our system of education isn’t exactly the best way for him to learn,” Steve said. “He never thought he’d be admitted to BYU because of his academics. But he had a poster in his room that read: ‘I can’t.’ He looked at that every day to remind him that he could, he would.”
“I am very proud of him. Come game time, I will be happy and proud for him,” said Steve.
When members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints send a child on a mission, the farewell at the Mission Training Center can be extremely emotional. Two years is a long time of separation, and it is most often the first time away from the nest.
When Jamison was dropped off at the Provo MTC, a staging time for his two years in Argentina, after the luggage was unloaded from the car and people started to hug, the tears began to flow. His dad came up to Jamison for a hug and told him, “Bye, buddy, hope you find your dad.” It is the only line spoken by the memorable character Mr. Narwhal from the movie “Elf” when everyone is leaving for the North Pole.
The quote lightened up the mood and made it fun, said Jamison. “It put a smile on everyone’s face in a sad time. It is something that he would say and something he would do. It comes from a place of love and makes you smile.”
Grimes, now the offensive coordinator at Baylor, remembers the father and son fondly.
“Steve is one of the most loyal soldiers I’ve ever worked with and a good friend,” said Grimes. “Passionate about his players and BYU, he is fiercely defensive of his guys.
“If Steve is a colonel in the armed forces, Jamison is a young private who followed in his father’s footsteps because he loves his dad and the game so much. He’s a young guy who’s willing to do anything to get his foot in the door. They have a cool relationship, professional but loving as well.”
