Vince Clark '83, JD '85, MA '91

Vince Clark is the coach of the reigning national champion golf team at McLennan Community College (MCC), which took the crown at the NJCAA Championship in May. But he’s quick to point out that the team is also the Academic National Champions, named by the Golf Coaches Association of America. “I’m proud of that,” he said. “We work hard on campus, too.”

Clark took his team to the top after only two years as head coach at MCC. He was assistant coach in the program for six years before that, and he’s been teaching history and government at the Waco college since 1994. But his route to golf glory was circuitous, to say the least.

As a teenager, Clark helped his father—a lawyer and federal judge—manage the family farm in Springfield, Missouri, and he considered a career in ranching. He also wanted to teach golf, having learned the sport from his grandfather, but said it was hard to make a living as a golf pro in the 1970s. So he came to Baylor to be a lawyer like his father. After graduating in 1983 with a history degree and going straight through law school, Clark practiced law in Tyler for five years.

He enjoyed law, but a serious injury led him to reevaluate life, he said, and he asked himself if he was really happy. “The answer was, ‘Yes, but I could be happier,’” he said.

So he called his Baylor mentor and friend, history professor Robert Reid, for advice. Clark told Reid he wanted to be a teacher, and the conversation led to Clark’s return to Waco to earn a master’s degree in history. After that he taught at Baylor for one year and then did doctoral work at the University of Virginia, supporting himself with legal work part of the time. In 1994 he began teaching history and government at MCC and believed he’d found his true calling. He’s a well-known favorite on campus, prompting many students to declare him the best teacher they’ve ever had.

Reid said, “Teaching is a strange thing—you either have it or you don’t. And Vince has it. He has that indefinable character about him that is not only highly educational but also very winsome.”

Clark said he wants his players—and his students—to learn something about life as well as about golf or history. “I want them to learn empathy,” he said. “History is all about empathy to me. And I want them to learn a work ethic—to be tenacious survivors, like George Washington or Jack Nicklaus. I want them to be gracious in victory as well as defeat—like Lee and Grant. I want them to remember the grace that both generals demonstrated long after they’ve forgotten who surrendered at Appamattox.”

Jeremy Lambright, an MCC sophomore and member of the championship team, seemed to have gotten the message. He said the team won the championship because they worked the hardest and stuck together as a team—and because they wanted to win it for their coach.

“The first time I met Vince, he was so nice I thought he was being sarcastic, because you really don’t meet people who are actually that nice,” he said. “He treats us so well that we really wanted to give something back to him.”