Former USC Coach Clark, 65, Dies : Apparent Heart Attack Takes Life of ‘57-’59 Football Coach

Don R. Clark, who coached USC’s football team from 1957-’59, died Sunday night of an apparent heart attack while jogging near his Huntington Beach home, Jim Callanan of Pierce Bros.-Smith Mortuary in Huntington Beach said.

Clark, who also played for USC as a guard in 1942, ’46 and ‘47, died in the emergency room at the Humana Hospital in Huntington Beach, a hospital spokeswoman said. He was 65.

Clark coached the Trojans in the three seasons between Jess Hill and John McKay.

His team was 1-9 during his debut season, but improved to 4-5-1 the next season, and was 8-2 in 1959. USC won eight consecutive games before a frustrating ending with consecutive losses to rivals UCLA and Notre Dame.

He left football with one year on his contract to become a vice president with the Prudential Overall Supply Co. in Costa Mesa. He was president of the company when he died, Callanan said.

McKay, who was then 36, took over as coach after spending one season as Clark’s assistant. Al Davis, owner of the Raiders, also was an assistant in 1959.

After serving in World War II, Clark returned in 1947 to USC to continue his education and football career. He was named the team’s captain during his senior season, and then was drafted to play for the San Francisco 49ers.

As a 202-pound lineman, he alternated between guard and middle lineman for one season.

He left the 49ers to accept an assistant’s position under Eddie Erdelatz at the Naval Academy in 1950.

“Then Jess Hill called me after that one season, and asked me if I wanted to come back,” Clark once said in an interview.

Clark accepted the invitation and served as a line coach until he replaced Hill in 1956. Clark was popular with his players, and after Hill retired they prepared a petition asking the administration to name the 33-year-old assistant as the coach, according to John Arnett, who had a successful career as a running back with the Rams.

Clark onced reminisced about his experiences during World War II in Holen, Germany, where he was in a rifle platoon for seven months.

“The worst of it was in Hofen,” he once said in an interview. “That’s where my Battalion was during the first part of the Battle of the Bulge. We were surrounded in that little town for 10 days and under constant shelling and mechanized attacks.

“My only battle wounds were in my mouth. An .88 shell went off close to me and knocked six fillings out of my teeth.”

Clark did not meet Gen. George Patton during the war, but afterward he received an award from the famous general for his performance in the European Theater Relays track and field meet where he competed in the shot put.