ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Friday, October 4, 1996 TAG: 9610040031
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B-5 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: BRIDGEWATER
SOURCE: DANIEL UTHMAN STAFF WRITER
BRIDGEWATER COLLEGE'S long-dormant football program is showing signs of life under Michael Clark.
Hurricane Fran may have brought more changes to Bridgewater College than meet the eye.
The storm arrived at the small campus near the North River just south of Harrisonburg on the weekend of Sept.7. As the Eagles pulled out for their season opener at Western Maryland College, volunteers were sand-bagging their school.
The next day, as the Eagles were wiping out Western Maryland by a 10-6 score, Fran was wiping out Bridgewater's football field. It's now a blend of sand and sod.
``Beach volleyball has been a success,'' said second-year Bridgewater coach Michael Clark. ``We'll find out if beach football has a market or not.''
Just as Fran wiped out parts of the campus, Clark is working to wipe out the Eagles' dark football past. After 59 years, Bridgewater has the second-worst winning percentage (.279) in NCAA Division III history. The team has won 19 Old Dominion Athletic Conference football games in 21 years of membership. With the help of Dr. Phillip C. Stone, the school president, Clark is trying to make the past even more distant. Stone has increased the number of football assistant coaching positions from one to five, and has demonstrated a commitment to having a successful program.
Clark has led the Eagles to their best start, 2-1, since 1980 and had 110 players, the most ever for the team, in summer drills.
``I want to know that every time we compete, we are competitive,'' said Stone, a Bridgewater graduate. ``Football season comes early in the year and sets a tone for the entire year.''
Bridgewater rings a bell on its campus each time an athletic team wins. For most of the past 59 years, the tone of that bell has been very quiet.
``We've gotten to the point now where Bridgewater winning a game is a major media event,'' said Clark, a former defensive coordinator at Virginia Tech (1988-92) and VMI (1993-94). ``Hopefully someday Bridgewater losing a game will be a major media event.''
The victory over Western Maryland ended a 25-game winless streak. It's also made Saturday's ODAC opener at home against Hampden-Sydney one of the biggest games in Bridgewater history.
``We have a 3-52 record against them,'' Clark said. ``For a president to step up and say, `That's wrong,' to a certain extent I'm in a good spot at the right time.''
There were many days when Clark never thought he would be in his current position. He coached in five Division I programs after graduating from the University of Cincinnati in 1979. Coaching at Bridgewater, or any other Division III school, is not like Division I.
When he arrived at Bridgewater, he asked former coach John Spencer, now his linebackers coach, if there was anything he should remember to do. Spencer told him, ``If the laundry lady's sick, you can't let the laundry sit in there and stew overnight.''
``What happens at Division III is you swallow your ego a little bit,'' Clark said. ``Nobody's much interested in what you're saying.
``I focus on the fact that I bought a house two blocks down the street. I walk to work. I'm the boss. If I focus on the fact that I've picked up a lot of collateral duties that I thought I left in my [graduate assistant] days in Division I, there can be some frustrations.''
There were some frustrations in Division I, too. He left Blacksburg when he was asked to leave his coordinator's spot to coach a position. The same thing happened at VMI.
Those situations led him to delve deeper in his office library, which includes works not only by Lombardi and Bowden, but also Pope John Paul and Mother Teresa.
``For 14 years of my career, everything went according to my plan,'' Clark said. ``If there's anything I've learned the past two or three years, it's I'm not in control.
``I don't deal in goals. I don't think in the long term. You want to hear a good joke? Just tell God your plans.''
Clark hasn't set any quotas for wins and losses. After his first game last season, a 28-14 loss to Bethany, fans congratulated him for not getting blown out. A few weeks before that game, Clark and his fellow ODAC coaches gathered for a media day. The overriding theme of the meeting was the league's even level of competition and how on any given Saturday, almost anyone can beat anybody else. ``I knew who the almost was,'' Clark said.
Bridgewater now thinks a winning season is within its grasp.
``At the first of the year, we would have been satisfied with three wins,'' said Col. James Benson, executive assistant to the president, a former Eagles quarterback and a Roanoke native. ``We're not satisfied with that anymore.''
Clark is glad he can create such expectations. Bridgewater has given him the stability he was seeking last year for himself and his family. His oldest daughter, Megan, is a sophomore in high school and knows she won't have to make another move until college. His youngest daughter, Erin, is his roommate for road games and holds his headset wire on the sidelines at games.
His wife, Sharon, has her own career as a kindergarten teacher in the Harrisonburg City School system. One day while she was at school and their children were off, Erin called her father in his office. She told him the toilet was stopped up.
``I said, `Well, what did you do?' She said, `I put towels around the bottom and flushed it again.' I said, `That was a bad idea.'''
It wasn't that big a deal, though. He just ran down the street and took care of things. ``I pick up a lot of collateral duty around the house, too.''
With all that is expected of him, the last thing he needs are more duties, whether they're caused by domestic disaster or flooded football fields.
``For two weeks we drove out to a soccer field at a middle school to practice,'' Clark said. ``We'd load all the equipment in the back of a pickup truck and I'd sit among the dummies, ride out to the practice field and review my practice plans.
``I thought to myself, `I wonder if George Welsh would do this.' Probably not.''
Maybe not, but it's the best thing for Clark now.
LENGTH: Long : 113 lines ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO: BRIDGEWATER COLLEGE. Michael Clark seems to have theby CNBBridgewater College football program pointed in the right
direction.