Front and Center : Brian Clark Is the Anonymous Leader of CSUN’s Running and Passing Games

Playing center on a football team is a little like being an air traffic controller. The only time you’re noticed is when you botch an assignment.

It is a place for someone with an abundance of muscle and a scarcity of ego. A job well done means you can read about your tailback in the morning paper.

For Brian Clark it is the perfect position. He’ll be the center. Let someone else be the center of attention.

Clark, 22, a three-year starter for Cal State Northridge, takes no bows for the yardage Matador running backs racked up last season. He says it’s a team effort. Blockers block. Runners run and make headlines.

“I think it’s a reflection of myself and the offensive line when the running back scores or makes a lot of yards,” he says with all the cockiness he allows.

Last season, tailback Mike Kane was selected to the Division II All-American team after setting school records for rushing yards and scoring.

Clark didn’t receive any national acclaim, but his value was not lost on opposing coaches who made him a unanimous All-Western Football Conference selection. “When his name came up in the meeting,” CSUN Coach Bob Burt says, “everyone agreed.”

Perhaps even more impressive, however, is that those coaches were grading Clark strictly on his ability to plant the derriere of a 280-pound nose tackle in the dirt. Burt says Clark can bench press more than 400 pounds and run 40 yards in 4.8 seconds. But just as important is what’s inside the 6-1, 260-pound chassis.

“He’s proof that you don’t have to be a loud, rah-rah guy to be a leader,” Burt says. “He sets an example both with his practice work ethic and in game situations. The intangibles are what set him apart.”

Those qualities, Burt says, will come in particularly handy this season. Kane has exhausted his athletic eligibility as have last season’s top two quarterbacks.

“Having Brian on the field is a settling influence,” Burt says. “It’s a lot more comfortable for quarterbacks who are new to line up behind a guy who just exudes confidence and poise like he does.”

Clark, who was selected co-captain in a vote of players for the second consecutive season, gets a little bashful when compliments are passed his way. “You don’t have to be a captain to be a leader,” he says. “Leadership is just something you should do. You try to be good to everybody, to know the difference between right and wrong, and just work hard all the time. Hopefully, at least one other person will see it and work hard, too.”

Normally soft-spoken, Clark can get extremely vocal during a game. “People say I’m quiet because off the field I’m not crazy,” he says, “but sometimes during a game I go overboard. Sometimes I just lose it for a second.”

His spirit always is slanted toward the positive, however. “I don’t get on anybody,” he says. “I’m not the coach. I’m just like everyone else here. If you do the best you can there’s nothing more you can ask for.”

Clark first was thrust into a leadership role at St. Bernard’s High in Playa del Rey, where he was a three-year starter. About the only award he didn’t receive upon graduation was a major college scholarship.

Stanford was interested for a while but never made an offer. Clark thinks a full-length leg cast he was wearing while greeting college recruiters might have had an adverse effect on his status as a prospect. He had strained ligaments in his right knee during St. Bernard’s final playoff game in 1983.

Clark tried to make the team at UCLA as a walk-on but left after one year. “I got the feeling they weren’t going to give me much of a look, so I thought it was probably time to move on,” he says.

Northridge, which had recruited him out of high school despite his injury, was his next option. A nose tackle at UCLA, Clark stepped in at center for the Matadors in 1985 and became an immediate starter.

“It was a good move all-around.” Clark says.

Especially for Northridge.