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Senior Day `94 supplement (basketball)

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Senior year worth wait for Clark**

Good things come to those who wait. Senior guard Marty Clark kept this thought in the back of his mind while at Duke and it has finally paid off this season.

Although he was a member of two national championship teams early in his college career, Clark always itched to step up and show off his considerable basketball skills. To show off your skills, you have to play, and this season Clark is getting ample opportunity to do just that.

As a senior, Clark has become a team leader, and now that his career is coming to an end, the days and games go by more quickly while the positive feelings for his Duke experience become more entrenched.

"With what I've experienced here at Duke, it's sad to see something like that come to an end," Clark said.

After playing a limited, but important role in Duke's two championship seasons, Clark stepped up last season to play almost 20 minutes a game, start six of them, and score over seven points per contest.

As a senior, Clark has elevated his production and importance to the team. He is getting over 22 minutes per game of playing time this season and contributing about 10 points each contest. But as impressive as his statistics have been, Marty Clark, the basketball player has improved and matured in other areas as well.

"Everything has stepped up a couple steps from last year," Clark said. "As far as leadership, I've really got a good feel for what Coach wants us to do with this team.

"There's been a lot more opportunities for me on the offensive end. I've finally been able to carve a niche out and I've been able to contribute in a lot of different ways, and that's just the kind of player I am."

Although his career is ending with a strong senior campaign and has been filled with -- at least on the surface -- many positive moments, all has not gone as planned for Clark in his Duke career.

"My first two years here were filled with a lot of regrets," Clark said. "I didn't play as much. It's just very frustrating for a player to come in, to have been playing for 10 or 12 years on an everyday basis. . . and not play."

Clark became frustrated enough that he seriously considered transferring. But in an ironic twist, another player's decision to transfer kept Clark at Duke.

"With Billy McCaffrey leaving, it probably kept me here," Clark said. "I was definitely trying to further my potential and to enjoy playing basketball, because that's what I came here to do and I wasn't doing that my first two years."

In the last two years, when he has seen more playing time, he has developed a special relationship with the home crowd at Cameron Indoor Stadium. Indeed, Clark, more than anyone on the team with the possible exception of Chris Collins, seems to draw energy from the cheers at Cameron to raise his game to the next level.

"I could probably sit and talk to you about the Cameron crowd for half an hour," Clark said. "It's just the best. Probably the reason I feed off of them really well is that I know a lot of them. I see them on an everyday basis.

"For them to come out and do what they do, every game, is tremendous. I don't think the students realize how much we appreciate them. I don't think we interact with them enough or come out and actually say what they mean for us. It just seems to get assumed.

"I think I feed off of them so well because I appreciate them so much, and I realize the time that they take to support our program."

One reason Clark may identify so well with the average Duke student is because of the effort he has put in to transcend the stereotypical role of the big-time college athlete.

"I've really tried to be admirable as far as a student-athlete is concerned," Clark said. "I've tried to mix in with a lot of students and I think I have a lot of genuine relationships with a lot of students. Just to be considered a Duke student and not a basketball player is really important."

As much as his time at Duke has been rewarding, however, Clark knows that it is almost over and has made plans for the future.

"It's definitely a time to move on and do something else," Clark said. "I think that I'll be able to play, if not in the NBA, definitely in Europe. I want to have basketball take me as far as it can."

When that limit has been reached, Marty Clark the economics major plans to put his degree to work for him.

"Hopefully I'll make some money, come back to [business] school, then join the real world."