Jack Clark grew up in Huntington Beach, California, and was a standout athlete in football, basketball and track & field at Edison High School, where he is a member of the Alumni Hall of Fame. He continued his athletic career at Orange Coast Junior College, where he was an All-American tackle in football, before transferring and accepting a scholarship to UC Berkeley. He was inducted into the Orange Coast College Athletics Hall of Fame in 2016 and the California State Junior College Football Hall of Fame in 2021. At Cal, he was two sport lettermen in football and rugby, earning All-Coast honors in football and a call up to the U.S. National Team in rugby. Clark was named MVP of the 1979 U.S. National Trials and earned caps with the U.S. national rugby team in 1979–1980, and additionally a prestigious selection to the World XV. Clark joined Cal’s rugby program as an assistant coach in 1982 and after two seasons in that role, he was appointed head coach in 1984, launching what would become one of the most successful coaching tenures in American collegiate rugby history. Over four decades, he has directed the program to 30 national collegiate championships (25 in 15s and 5 in the Olympic form of the game, 7s) and is currently in his 43rd season at the helm. He served as the head coach of the USA National Team in 1993–1999, achieving a record 16 international test match victories, the most of any U.S. coach, and remained the general manager of the team through the 2003 Rugby World Cup. Clark is a member of the U.S. Rugby Hall of Fame in 2014 and the Cal Athletics Hall of Fame in 2016. Clark is also the 2016 recipient of The Glenn T. Seaborg Award, named after the former University chancellor and Nobel Prize winner. Furthermore, he was named a Living Legend by Pac-12 Networks in 2015 and was named the Craig Sweeney Award recipient for major contributions to the sport of rugby in 2001. In 2000, he was named one of Cal’s Ten Most Influential Sports Figures of the 20th Century.