Clark Finds Comfort in Memories of Son : Mourning: Saugus basketball coach sorts through emotions after Jackson, 22, dies of intestinal cancer.

Before frenzied fans in an overcrowded high-desert high school gym in January, 1987, Jackson Clark made the most important pair of free throws of his life.

The Saugus High senior came through with four seconds to play in triple overtime to lead his team to a 70-68 come-from-behind victory over Golden League rival Ridgecrest Burroughs.

There was reason to celebrate. Clark’s season-high 14 points helped Saugus snap Burroughs’ six-year, 40-game home winning streak. It also added to a Cinderella season that culminated two months later with the Centurions winning the Southern Section 3-A Division championship.

Saugus Coach John Clark charged onto the floor and planted a bear hug on his son. That was enough celebrating for the Centurions’ coach. But after a 120-mile bus ride back to Saugus, 17-year-old Jackson wasn’t finished whooping it up and he sneaked out of the house after midnight to join a few teammates.

He returned at 4 a.m. to find an angry father waiting in a dark living room.

Nearly five years later, as Jackson lay dying in a hospital bed, John Clark and his son found themselves reflecting on that early morning encounter.

“I told Jack, ‘I shouldn’t have been so upset with you that night,’ ” John Clark said. “ ‘If I was 17, I would have wanted to go out all night and talk and rehash that game a thousand times. But as a parent, you say that by 4 o’clock a kid should be in.’

“All these things went through my mind as I was sitting in that hospital.”

And a lot more.

Jackson Clark, 22, died Friday after a four-month battle with intestinal cancer.

Over the past few months, Clark and his son had rekindled a lot of memories--about basketball games and Christmas mornings. And about things, Clark says, only he and his son would understand.

For a bewildered and grieving John Clark, 46, who never envisioned himself navigating a daily path among school, home and Jackson’s bedside, the past four months have been a parent’s worst nightmare.

“Right now,” Clark said, fighting back tears Sunday morning at Saugus High, “I’m kind of upset with God.”

In June, Jackson Clark was a junior at UC Santa Barbara, planning a career devoted to environmental causes, officiating youth basketball games for extra cash and pedaling his bicycle from one odd job to another to help pay his way through school.

In July, he began to experience mysterious shoulder pains that spread to his stomach and then intensified. Within a month, doctors diagnosed a large, cancerous tumor in a remote part of his intestinal cavity that had been growing undetected for perhaps as long as five years. The tumor could not be surgically removed and subsequent chemotherapy was unsuccessful.

“They told him, basically, that he would be dead in weeks,” Clark said.

Throughout his son’s illness, Clark strived to keep the matter private while trying to conduct business as usual.

“He handled it remarkably well,” said Randy Parker, Saugus athletic director and Clark’s neighbor. “He was able to keep all of his problems with Jackson out of the school atmosphere and that’s the way he wanted it. Some people might not have noticed anything was wrong.”

On Sunday, Clark, wearing a few days’ stubble on his face, a gray sweat suit and blue baseball cap pulled tightly over his brow, held a press conference to announce that this would be his final season as the Centurions’ coach. Clark, who began coaching Saugus in 1983, has compiled a 104-104 record.

He also took the opportunity to thank everyone who had offered support during his son’s illness.

Clark paused between sentences and struggled for words while describing his son as hard-working, conscientious and “all the things a father would feel about his son.”

Clark’s gray hair was short and fuzzy, shaved as a show of support to his son. He said he will wear it that way throughout the upcoming season.

“Jack shaved his hair because he didn’t want the chemotherapy to take it,” Clark said.

In addition to his father, Jackson Clark is survived by his mother, Terri, and two sisters, Jennifer, 20, and Danielle, 18.

A memorial scholarship fund in Jackson’s name will be established at Saugus High. Proceeds from an alumni basketball game at Saugus on Nov. 27 will go toward the fund and Clark’s jersey, No. 24, will be retired.

During his senior year at Saugus, Jackson was an integral member of a team of overachievers who squeezed into the playoffs as a wild-card team but conquered six consecutive opponents to win the 3-A championship.

In the hospital, doctors were astonished by Jackson’s poise and positive attitude, Clark said. As his condition worsened, letters of sympathy and support poured in--even from people who did not know him personally.

Condolences came from Dean Smith, basketball coach at North Carolina, and Bret Saberhagen, the Kansas City Royals pitcher and 1982 Cleveland High graduate.

Among the regular hospital visitors were Canyon High Coach Greg Hayes and members of Saugus’ 1987 championship team, including Jeff Dorst, Greg Weber and Vladimir Bilik.

Clark said that his son kept a journal during his final days. But he said he probably never will have the courage to read it.

“My wife read it,” Clark said. “But there is no mention in there of dying. He never spent a lot of time making out a will and saying who was going to get his 10-speed. He never felt he was going to die.”