Athletic greatness comes in all shapes and all sizes.

It doesn't come naturally, but is achieved from hard work, diligence and adversity along the journey.

There's opportunity and there's always struggle.

There is triumph and there is defeat, and there is always a story behind the glory.

There are challenges to most job but when you program has been on self imposed shut down, It█s a different kind of challen Brand new program starting from scratch after the point shaving scandal.

Didn't have a large arena.

They went to have tryouts.

They had to go borrow basketballs from the rec center to be able to have tryouts that day.

But this was the late 80s, and Perry Clark was the first African-American head coach at Tulane University.

Perry.

Clark, you took Tulane basketball to places it had never been before and has not been since.

You've described your time at Tulane, which was very, very in turmoil as Camelot.

Why?

Because it was very special time with very special people.

And it challenged you to be the very best you could be.

The people in the state of Louisiana have a heart, have a character, have a soul that is just so unique and very, very special.

And I was led by tremendous leadership at Tulane.

Doctor Kelley, didn't have to bring the program back.

He did bring it back.

Marc Morial was a mayor at the time, and he gave the city a spirit and, and, a family atmosphere.

And so it was just a Camelot.

It was just a lot of different ingredients all at the same time.

That just kind of blended together and made it all work.

Perry was being asked to start or to restart a Division one men's basketball program.

There was no blueprint that he could follow.

absent for four years, but three seasons ago, the sport drew a reprieve.

And now guess In the 1990s, with no transfer portal, no NIL no one and done, no unionization of players having to recruit to a school with higher academic standards, Perry Clark resurrected a program here at Tulane.

For this basketball lifer from Washington D.C. his arrival in the Crescent City brought a run of great success for the Green Wave.

Including 3 NCAA Tournament appe in a four year span.

The only 3 NCAA Trips in the program█s history The biggest story in college basketball that year was Duke going for back to back national titles.

The second biggest story was Tulane basketball.

we knew we were going to have the opportunity to be good, and we just kind of grew into, you know, one of the top two, college basketball teams in the nation at that time.

And we pressed, we trapped.

We created a lot of excitement and that style threw a lot of coaches off and it allowed us to really go on runs and be really exciting.

And Fogleman was rocking.

There was some nights, I'm telling you, I walked into Fogelman and I knew it was no way we were going to lose.

The Cajuns had been drinking all day.

They were throwing beads on the floor, and it was a festive atmosphere.

And the other team, you could see the fear in their eyes, like, what in the world is going on here?

And it was just a very, very special time.

He brought with him remarkable people.

Skills that allowed this campus and city to embrace him.

And allowed him to recruit.

He brought with him an innovative plan.

The posse, which made this team fun to watch.

Clark had a group of young backup players that deserved to play, and the coach would insert all five of them at the first media timeout.

This became affectionately known at Tulane as the Posse.

You talked about Tulane men's basketball was like, oh, yeah, they've got the posse.

And he brought with him the ability to coach and develop players to where they could perform at a level.

Some of them didn't even think they could reach.

That was the identifiable trait as this program skyrocketed in that, in that early 1990s.

In 11 season at Tulane, Clark won 185 games with 6, 20 win seasons 7 postseason appearances And the only conference title in program history It quickly became the hottest ticket in town, not just the best four years of my life, but also all the lasting relationships that, you know, we were able to cultivate.

And Coach Clark was the person who put all those things together.

How about that response right there?

Says it all about college basketball.

Well, 185 victories, and that's after a four and 24 year won the only three NCAA tournament appearances that Tulane has ever had seven postseason opportunities.

We should have went to two more, by the way.

I'm sorry, let me recount, but but the point is, literally the program did not exist.

And you resurrected it, built it from the ashes and did it in a very unique way.

Your style of playing the game was something that, has been seen since, but it certainly was not common at the time.

And that is your substitution pattern.

Yeah.

What we wanted to do was we wanted part of it.

And being great, you have to be competitive and you have to find a way to create a competition.

And you have to find a way to create energy.

And you got to find a way to create purpose.

And what we did was we wound up playing ten guys and they challenged each other every day in practice.

We competed every day in practice.

They had to learn how to win.

They had to learn how to lose.

They had to learn how to sacrifice for each other.

And that culture allowed all of them to go ahead and be very successful.

I think seven of my guys went on to become head coaches or head coaches.

Now everybody graduated that stayed there for four years.

And so it was a competition across the board And now you can get the best players in the state.

And and because this state has been blessed with so many good players.

And again, I talk about Dale Brown because he was the patron saint of basketball in this state.

And if it wasn't for him, I don't know if basketball would have been relevant, would have been important.

Collis Temple, what he was doing with the youth and Baton Rouge and the development of the programs there, obviously it benefited LSU, but it also helped everyone in the state and they embraced what we were doing because they knew it was the best thing for the kids in the state.

It was good for the state and again, it was Camelot.

It was just the perfect storm coming together, and I was just able to take advantage of it.

And we did some very special things.

I've heard you speak from the heart and very convincingly of your affinity, your love for for Louisiana people, the culture and how it sustained you.

Talk talk to me about that.

Louisiana is a very, very special place because the people here, if you give them your heart and you care and you show them that you care, they will do anything for you and they will follow you.

So many times I used to go to the Saints games when they weren't very good at the time, and just sit up there on a Sunday and see the fans.

I mean, they'd be dying with the Saints and everything, and I just got caught up into that because everybody was so the passion that they have here, and it's just a very, very special place.

And the stories and, it's just very, very unique people who just care, they're just really good, honest folks that want to make life better.

They want to help their neighbors.

They care about their neighbors.

They use sports as a way of of galvanizing themselves and to come together.

And it's just really, really special.

And it's motivating to see people with that type of heart and spirit and care.

You got to give.

Like I said, they they challenged me to be the very best that I could.

Head coaching stops would follow at Miami and Texas A&M Corpus Christi, finishing with 304 career victories.

He concluded his coaching career at South Carolina, where, as an assistant, he was a part of their 2017 Final Four team.

After retiring in 2020, he continues to be a part of the sport as an ESPN basketball analyst.

Not just Tulane basketball or in the state of Louisiana, but for what he did for college basketball during that time.

You have nothing but great things to say about coach.

And, yeah, just so proud of them for what this program was able to do.

From no program to two years later winning a conference championship.

It's something that is truly remarkable and may never be done again in the history of college athletics.

Clark was inducted into the State Basketball Coaches Hall of Fame in 2008, the Tulane Hall of Fame in 2009, and in 2020, the Greater New Orleans Sports Hall and the top sports honor enshrined in the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame in 2024. it showed even after he left, he continued to come back to New Orleans and visit, you know, didn't live here again, really, but continue to, you know, come in because he liked the place, and overall the place liked him.

In true leadership, fashion coach Perry Clark credits his success to the men and women who helped him throughout his coaching journey.

You know, I want to just finish with this.

You've described your experience at Tulane as your personal Camelot.

I'm going to offer another idea.

Perhaps the theme song should have been The Impossible Dream, because in many ways it was.

Well, it was, it's it's a lot of people made a lot of sacrifices and did a lot of things to make it work.

Too many for me to give a call up to mention, but I've called several of them personally and thanked them for what they gave to me and what they meant to me, and it meant so much to hear my players who now have gone on and have children of their own and have success, to tell stories and the impact of the experience I had for them, it just makes it all worthwhile.

I mean, you know, life is about giving back and I've always believed in that.

And so I'm just happy to have a place, a small place in the history of this fine state.

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