From Blocker to Broker : Cobra Lineman Brian Clark Could Swap Pads for 3-Piece Suit

Brian Clark has this vision. He’s no longer playing football in a hockey rink for the Los Angeles Cobras of the Arena Football League. He’s found something better to do.

“I see myself in a three-piece suit, not sweating it out here,” Clark, formerly of St. Bernard High School, said after a recent practice at the Sports Arena. “You know, being in an air-conditioned office making big money with the mind, and not the body. You save the body for later when you get home.”

The daydream continues on Wall Street. That’s where Clark’s teammate Wesley Walton spends the off-season schooling millionaires on how to invest their money. When Clark eventually joins him in financial planning, “we’ll call each other up and do lunch,” quipped Walton.

Though it sounds more realistic than Clark’s current occupation, this is merely a vision. When you play football--professionally--on a field half the length and width of a normal field, or 50 yards by 85 feet, which happen to be the dimensions of a regulation National Hockey League rink, your view rarely includes money markets and mutual funds.

It is, however, a view that will likely content Clark for more than the Cobras’ two remaining regular season games since L.A. (4-6) needs just one win or the benefit of one New York Knights’ loss to secure the league’s fourth and final playoff spot.

“Right now, I’m fulfilling a little dream,” said Clark, who anchors the line at center and nose guard, required by league rules to play offense and defense. “I didn’t think I’d play after college, so arena football is kind of a blessing in disguise.”

Clark thinks of arena football as a summer job but it pays better. A standard contract yields $1,000 per game, or $12,000 for three months plus bonuses. Walton said it would take him another two years to earn a similar short-term salary on “The Street.” Which is OK, Clark said, because he’s already making money the old-fashioned way.

“I have to admit, you do earn your money here,” Clark said. “You earn it in practice and in the game. It’s not like you just come on the field and pick up your check.”

Instead, if you’re Clark, you throw your 6-foot-1, 250-pound frame around in a 16-man game while surrounded by foam sideline barriers designed for crunching hits. In front and behind you stand 4-foot-wide goal posts sandwiched between dual 30- by-35-foot tautly strung nets off which stray field goals, drop kicks, kickoffs and passes bound--in play--onto the playing surface.

Sound like a futuristic version of that old schoolyard pastime, Kill the Kid With the Ball?

Well, there’s more. Scoring is an afterthought. Most teams pass 90% of the time. The constant aerials spinning overhead could make even a down-to-earth business finance major like Clark dizzy. And the fans? They’re hollering at you from temporary seats about 10 feet away.

“I like that,” said Clark. “I eat it up. The fans of L.A. are a wild bunch. They had 13,000 in Detroit, but they weren’t as loud as our 6,000.”

Not having to compete with the Lakers could improve the Cobras’ attendance. And, though he doesn’t want to play next season, Clark believes arena football will last, partly because the proximity of players and fans makes it easy to interact.

Despite evoking pitiless chuckles from some, the 2-year-old league hasn’t left Clark defending himself in conversation.

“I have not gotten a negative reaction,” he said. “Many people don’t know anything about it, but they come up and compliment me. The people love the hitting against the boards and the ball going in the stands when they get to keep it. If we could get everyone here one night, they’d take to it.”

The problem is, it might be tougher to fill the Sports Arena for the Cobras than for the sparsely supported Clippers of the National Basketball Assn. Consider the attendance figures for the first three Cobra games at home: opening Night, April 30, vs. the New York Knights--10,157; May 21 vs. Pittsburgh--6,236; May 26 vs. New England--5,278.

Believing yourself a pro before such meager showings could be tough. But it’s probably easier than wondering whether you’ll survive arena football training camp in Orlando, Fla. “Hellish” was the way Clark described camp. “It rained one day and it would still be hot. You had no choice but to lose weight,” he recalled. “If I had to do it over again, I don’t know. I wassaying to myself all during camp that I justcan’t imagine not making this team after going through all of this. It would’ve been such a letdown.”

At camp, it wasn’t the salary Clark would make if he made the team that persuaded him to stick around. “It was the money I wasn’t gonna’ be making if I didn’t make the team because we weren’t compensated for training camp,” Clark said. “The contract didn’t start until we made the team. I was thinking about that throughout camp.”

In the spring of 1985, UCLA recruited Clark until he suffered a serious knee injury in his last game at St. Bernard. After that, the Bruins encouraged Clark to walk-on in Westwood, where his full recovery should have at least erased any notions of his demise as a Division I player.

Clark did walk-on but UCLA’s academic program and his less-than-second-string status made him realize that he’d neither learn what he wanted nor play as much as he should. So he transferred to Cal State Northridge where his play at center for the Division II Matadors earned him Western Football Conference All-American honors in 1986 and 1987.

“I needed only 10 minutes to see that he was good,” said 46-year-old Northridge Coach Bob Burt. “I have not seen a better offensive lineman in my time. He’s the best I’ve ever been around. Very quick, very smart. We defined everything around him. He was our captain for two years and really the focal point of our wheel.

“We got somebody to replace him, of course, but you never get someone like him. You just hope someone will grow into what Brian was.”

Thinking National Football League teams would label him too small for a lineman and too big for a linebacker, Clark decided to concentrate on a financial career when his eligibility ran out at Northridge. Now he finds himself in a league with more talent than he ever saw before.

His trademark is consistency.

“Brian is a very reliable guy,” said Cobras Coach Ray Willsey. “He’s a steady contributor. His role is protecting the passer and controlling the line on defense. When you do that, you are not a spectacular player, you’re a control player.”

Walton, Clark’s roommate, thinks Clark’s intelligence renders irrelevant any questions about his size, which is average for arena football but small for linemen by pro standards.

“Brian can hang in there with anyone and that doesn’t really come from his size,” said Walton, a 6-foot, 250-pound former defensive lineman at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania who shows up at guard, center, linebacker and full back for the Cobras. “He’ll dominate you with his smarts by out-positioning you.”

As a team leader, “it’s more the man than the player in Brian’s case,” Walton added. “He’s a come-early-leave-late kind of person--and just a good guy.”

So is he cut out for Wall Street?

“Absolutely,” Walton said. “Brian has the ability to learn the system quickly, and I know he’ll be an executive some day.”