Inductees

The influence of a basketball coach became a catalyst for one of the best cross country coaches at Missouri State University.

The story of Richard Clark includes time playing football and basketball and running for the cross country and track and field for then-Southwest Missouri State University.

His journey included being an unpaid graduate assistant, a high school coach and later Missouri State head cross country coach, from 1979 to 2000.

His legacy in distance running includes coaching multiple team titles, but for many now, he’s the name behind one of the biggest high school cross country meets in the state.

Bolivar has hosted the Southwest Missouri Cross Country Coaches Association’s meet since 2017 and that year it was renamed the Richard Clark SWCCCA meet, with 1,400 runners. This past fall, more than 2,400 athletes ran in the event. Clark started the SWCCAA in the mid-1980s, and the meet initially was a traveling one until getting a home in Bolivar.

His impact in the sport goes well beyond a meet named after him, but his influence in Southwest Missouri in the sport is unmatched and that is why the Missouri Sports Hall of Fame proudly inducted Clark with the Class of 2026.

“Without a doubt, it’s the biggest honor I’ve ever received,” he said of the induction. “Not only does it mean a great deal to me, it means a great deal to many people who have been associated with part of the program in whatever way. They all had a part, and they’re all going to celebrate.”

Clark said he was coaching at Parkview High School — where he was from 1969 to 1976 — when he tried to get the cross country program started. He got pushback from the athletic director at the time. Slowly, but surely, four schools started.

“What we’ve done since that time is try to elevate the sport, and our part of the state is very daunting,” he said.

His experience in college helped shape a sport throughout the state.

A native of Thayer — a 1960 graduate — he went to Springfield for college. He played one year of football before a knee injury kept him from returning. He was on the men’s basketball JV team his first two seasons, playing for Bill Thomas, a 1990 Missouri Sports Hall of Fame inductee. Eddie Matthews was the Bears’ head basketball coach at the time.

Clark ran cross country for three years and did track and field for four years, running for Aldo Sebben, a 1987 Missouri Sports Hall of Fame honoree. Clark said watching Thomas coach played a role in wanting to be a coach, but he didn’t make that decision until late in his time at SMS. He was a graduate assistant for Sebben and helped with the throwers.

Clark started coaching at Cherokee Middle School and then went to Parkview before getting a chance to become the head cross country coach at Missouri State. He said he took a pay cut to take the college job then.

He guided the Bears program when they were a Division II school in the MIAA and became a Division I coach when the school moved up. He won MIAA titles in 1979 and 1980, a year when the Bears were fifth at the national championships.

The Bears won five Mid-Continent Conference titles in eight years after leaving the MIAA. Most of the competition he put his team against were members of the Big Eight Conference, often running against Iowa State, Kansas or Missouri at big meets.

Clark’s tenure produced three individual conference champions in cross country and 28 all-conference performances in the three leagues in which he coached.

“I can never thank him enough for the opportunity he gave me to be an athlete for him at SMSU in 1991,” Bandy said. “From that point on, his example and guidance provided me a path I never imagined I would have had. My wife, Jennifer, got to be his athlete as well at SMSU. We both consider him a hero in our lives.”

Clark’s work with the SWCCCA cannot be understated.

In the 1970s and 1980s, southwest Missouri’s cross country juggernaut belonged to West Plains High School. But you look at the way the sport has grown since the late 1980s in the Ozarks, and it’s downright impressive. Outside of West Plains, 25 boys teams and 15 girls teams from southwest Missouri have won state titles since 1988.

In other words, what a run it’s been.