Eye of the Tiger Is Eye of the Hurricanes’ Storm : Sugar Bowl: Bernard Clark, the man in middle of Miami’s punishing defense, has a mouthful of words for opponents.

Tiger says if the Grim Reaper doesn’t get you, Dr. Death surely will.

Tiger says there are just two kinds of college football players--those who play at Miami and those who get beat by Miami. Tiger says it’s cool to rap with the people you’re playing, celebrate their misfortune and revel in your own.

Tiger says Miami fans sitting in the closed end zone of the Orange Bowl, where the Hurricanes play their home games, carry cardboard tombstones with the names of each of the dearly departed teams that have been collected by the Grim Reaper. Or Dr. Death. Or perhaps even Tiger himself.

Tiger says he is proud and happy to be part of a group of linebackers called the Graveyard. Tiger says this is what college football is all about.

“Every little thing, just psychological warfare,” Tiger said. “You got to mess with people.

“I mean, go up against a linebacker corps that calls themselves the Graveyard,” Tiger said. “I mean, you got to wonder why they call themselves the Graveyard. Whoever comes in here is going to get buried. Then you hit them and you tell them, ‘Welcome to the Graveyard.’ ”

And welcome to the world of Bernard (Tiger) Clark, named by his sister after he took a swing at her from his crib as a 2-year-old. This Tiger is the fast-talking, hard-hitting, field-roving, dance-omatic middle linebacker of the Miami Hurricanes, the leader of a punishing defense that said more while allowing fewer points and less yardage than any other team in the nation this season.

On a team with an uncanny ability to incinerate and infuriate opponents at the same time, Tiger Clark may be the undisputed leader in both departments.

When No. 2 Miami (10-1) meets No. 7 Alabama (10-1) Monday night in the Superdome, the story of the Sugar Bowl could very well be a Tiger tale. Sure, defensive backs Charles Pharms, a.k.a. the Grim Reaper, and Bobby Harden, a.k.a. Dr. Death, equal Tiger in nicknames, but the 6-foot-2, 246-pound Clark is probably without peer in the area of intimidation, which the whole Miami team has managed to elevate into an art form.

If Andy Warhol inspired Pop Art, Bernard Clark is probably responsible for Pop-off Art. In fact, Clark may have perfected it, with the field his canvas, his mouth a brush.

Tiger put on a masterful performance in Miami’s 27-10 victory over previously unbeaten and No. 1 Notre Dame. Not only did Clark lead all defenders with 13 tackles, five assists and an interception, he also ended the game with a flourish that was vintage Tiger.

He tackled Rick Mirer for a loss, then helped himself up by putting his hand on Mirer’s head. Clark goose-stepped like a drum major the 10 yards into the end zone. Tiger’s extemporaneous dance thrilled his fans, and he stood there and took in their applause.

Tiger’s explanation was that he couldn’t help himself because, after all, he simply was bursting with exuberance.

“I was just dancing because I was so proud,” he said. “You tell me the dance I did in the end zone, was that a bad dance? I didn’t think so. I just look at it like I’m having fun.

“People have a negative image about us,” Clark said. “If one of our guys was to go into the end zone and pray, they’d probably say he was praying to Satan.”

Meanwhile, the sound of Irish teeth gnashing at the Clark spectacle might have been heard coast to coast. On Notre Dame radio and television, listeners were told this is the precise reason why the Irish don’t like playing the Hurricanes. But Miami linebacker coach Tom Tuberville doesn’t think there’s any need to absolve Clark for doing what the Hurricane staff encourages in the first place.

“Let me tell you something,” Tuberville said. “If I had been over there, I’d have done it with him.

“Tiger, he doesn’t showboat, he just shows his emotions. Tiger is one of the guys that when he makes a good play, he wants to show his emotions. If you tie him down to where he couldn’t enjoy playing that kind of football, then I don’t think he’d be as effective as he is.

“These kids are a little different down here. We want them to have fun. We are not going to tie them down. We don’t taunt anybody. That’s the biggest thing I’ve seen that people ridicule us for. We make plays, we like for our kids to celebrate. There are times when we celebrated too much. When it gets to that point, then we’ll make them stop.”

Neither former defensive coordinator Dave Wannstedt, who joined Jimmy Johnson when he left to coach the Dallas Cowboys, nor Miami Coach Dennis Erickson said taunting was allowed, but there is plenty of evidence that it happened anyway. Former Miami defensive back Bennie Blades said aggressive play was not the only thing passed down from the older players.

“It’s like a gene you pass down to a family member,” Blades said. “We taunted to intimidate people, to scare them. And taunting wasn’t always getting in someone’s face, it was like after you made a good hit, leaning over them and saying something like, ‘Come back the next time.’ That scared some people.”

That’s also not really taunting. But taunting or no taunting, the Hurricanes have a rich history of, well, enjoying themselves at someone else’s expense. In Miami’s 58-7 victory over Notre Dame in 1987, Blades intercepted a pass and high-fived a teammate as he ran down the field with the ball on his way toward the goal line.

As Pharms said, “We’re not nice guys as far as on the field goes.”

Clark said the obvious edge the Hurricanes are looking for is psychological. The image Miami cultivates should be clear to all by now.

“That we’re bad boys,” Clark said. “People think they are going to play a bunch of ruthless guys. Second of all, when I’m on the field, I’m constantly talking, trying to take them out of their game. I’m saying, ‘Look out, here comes someone, you’re going to get sacked this time,’ stuff like that.”

And what are the suitable topics for conversation? Apparently, anything goes.

“Different guys talk about the guys’ girlfriends, they talk about their mother and stuff like that,” Clark said. “A lot of guys can’t handle it. I think it’s totally ridiculous and you’re not a real athlete if you can let someone talk you out of your game.

“We played someone this year, I won’t tell you who, and a guy called me a nigger,” Clark said. “I just looked at him and laughed. I said ‘You can’t think of nothing more creative than that?’ I mean, things like that don’t bother me. You can’t take me out of my game. When I’m ready to play, I’m just ready to play.”

The way Miami conducts its business on defense, Clark is showcased as the principal element in stopping the run. What the Hurricanes do is to keep Clark free by covering the blocks of both guards and the center with their two down linemen. In return, Clark’s part of the bargain is to stop cold any inside rushing attempt.

Against Alabama, Clark won’t be involved in normal pass coverage, mostly because the Hurricanes believe the Crimson Tide will flood the field with play-action passes to freeze the linebackers and throw just behind them. Delays out of the backfield and screen passes belong in Clark’s domain, and Tuberville said his prize pupil recognizes what is his and takes it.

“He’s definitely our team leader,” Tuberville said. “He’ll get ‘em straightened out in the huddle. He runs our defense, he knows every linebacker position, he knows the drops in all our passing schemes and he’s our quarterback on defense. Bernard Clark football is 100% total hustle the whole time, from sideline to sideline.”

The era of Bernard Clark football at Miami was first evident in the 1988 Orange Bowl game. Starting middle linebacker George Mira was suspended for testing positive for steroids, so Clark stepped in against Oklahoma, and everything just sort of fell into place. Clark made 14 tackles, the Hurricanes beat the Sooners, 20-14, to win their second national title and Clark was named the game’s most valuable player.

Yet, when Maurice Crum emerged as a standout Hurricane outside linebacker, which was then Clark’s position, Tiger was sent to the bench to begin the 1988 season and finally moved to the middle. The results were not impressive.

“He really didn’t play very well because he was passive against the run,” said Tuberville, who had a long heart-to-heart talk with Clark in spring practice this year. The message was simple: “We told him he had to play inside and he had to be a big factor on stopping the run--he had to have a great year for us to have a great year.”

Clark had one great game, against Notre Dame; one pretty good one, against Florida State, and didn’t play at all in three games because of a knee injury. The Hurricanes’ 24-10 loss to the Seminoles was Clark’s first game since he hurt his knee in the second quarter of a 38-7 victory over Missouri. Although Clark had eight tackles, he wasn’t playing at full strength.

“We played very average that night,” Clark said. “I’m not going to blame it on the injury, but I gave it everything I got. The fact that I was hurt against Florida State really doesn’t make a difference because I still played a pretty good game. The reason I did stick out was because we lost. I was in on 13 tackles (including five assisted), broke up a pass, had some pressure on the quarterback. I’ve been coming on strong every game.”

In each of Miami’s final three games--victories over Pittsburgh, San Diego State and Notre Dame--Clark was named his team’s player of the game.

“He just dominated,” Tuberville said.

Clark has made it his quest to stand out. To start with, there is this thing with his hair. Two years ago, he shaved little lightning bolts above each ear. Last season, Clark shaved the word MIAMI just above the back of his neck. This season, Clark shaved his whole head before each game.

Since almost the first time he thought about big-time football, when he was playing Little League for the Tampa Spartans in the West Tampa Boys and Girls Club, Bernard Clark has decided to be a little different. The son of a longtime Delta Airlines employee and a mother who raised four children and then went back to school to become a registered nurse, young Tiger’s first hero was his cousin, Johnny Davis, who carried the hopes of the family.

A Little League star with the same Spartan team Tiger yearned to play for, Davis eventually wound up in jail.

The elder Clark was a football star at the then all-black Blake High in Tampa, Fla., who took a job to provide for his family instead of going to college. When young Bernard quit the junior varsity team at Tampa’s Leto High, his mother drove him straight back to the practice field and made him apologize to his coach.

“The thing my dad gave me is to be real honest with people, to tell people what’s on my mind,” he said. “My mother, I get a lot of strength from her. She wouldn’t let me quit anything. That’s how it was when I got to college. They said, ‘You’re not giving up until you get your degree.’ Well, I got mine May 13 at 8:30 (in business administration) in the morning, on a Friday. Now, I think I kind of got them off my back.”