CHASE CLARK-OKAY
If you were to put a subtitle to the story of Okay senior Chase Clark, it might be “Chasing Glory”. The hard-working Clark has been to the state tournament three straight years, twice to the final game, but the Gold Ball has eluded him so far. One of the factors that has contributed to his success as a Mustang has been his father, Chad, who is also the Mustang’s coach.
“He’s a real gym rat and what he really loves is basketball. He’s one of the hardest workers I know,” said the elder Clark. That leads to the inevitable question of how is it to coach your own child in a high school sport?
“I had always heard horror stories about how coaching your own kid can often have an effect on your home life, but we’ve never really had an issue,” said coach/dad. “I’m hard on him in practice and in games and I blame everything that goes wrong on him, but he loves it and it doesn’t faze him, “coach/dad laughed. And though it may sound strange, player/son agrees.
“He’s coached me all of my life and he’s a huge reason that I’m the player that I am today. All that blaming he talked about is a big part of my character and demeanor on the court,” said Chase who is also in FCCLA, Teens for Christ and National Honor Society.
As the Mustangs enter the 2025-26 season, a lot of the supporting cast that helped propel Okay to the Big Dance the last three years have moved on, so Chase knows that his leadership will be even more important to the team’s success this year.
“I’ve obviously got a much bigger leadership role to fill this year so I’m trying to be more vocal on the floor. But I’ve noticed a certain grit from this new group of players. I think we’ve surprised ourselves at how competitive we’ve been in team camps so far against some really good teams. Personally, I want to be a more dominant rebounder this year and just generally be an unstoppable force and take us back to state again.”
Chase has a trio of special memories from his time so far at Okay.
“My sophomore year I remember a game in the Fort Gibson tournament where we didn’t hit a single 3-pointer but still won pretty handily. Winning a game in the Tournament of Champions last year was a really big win for our program and probably the most fun game was last year when we played Caddo in the semifinals at state. We had a chip on our shoulder from losing to them in the championship game two years ago and Diesel (Davis) and I had about 50 points between us and it was a sweet win.”
Chase will continue his basketball career next year at Northeastern State but before that there’s one last season to chase the glory of winning the Gold Ball for Chase and the Mustangs.
