| by Courtney Dabney |Donald Clarke is well-known for wearing the colors of the Jamaican flag around town. His wardrobe is filled with black, gold and green, as is his SUV, which sports the same color scheme. Clarke is also the founder and head coach of the successful Jamerican Flyers Track Club, which has more than 100 current members.
The road to his adopted hometown of Fort Worth and gaining American citizenship was a bumpy one. Before becoming a nationally famous running star in Jamaica and a legend in his area of the island, Clarke found himself living on the streets from ages 11-13 with no real talents or prospects.
Clarke left Kingston after his father died. He was sent to live with his uncle in the country at 11 years old. He soon found that his aunt was in charge while his politician/uncle was away (which was most of the time). Without the support of his aunt, who chose to not even enroll him in the neighborhood school and refused to open her home to the boy, Clarke was left to sleep under her porch for two years and try to fend for himself.
A man who farmed yams on his uncle's property and took them into the city for sale each week knew of his grandmother and took Clarke to her, where he then lived for one year before being uprooted again and sent to live with his mother in Spanish Town (just outside of Kingston).
Around age 14, two of his schoolmates noticed Clarke's speed on the soccer field and insisted on introducing him to Coach Buckner with the Spanish Town Police Youth Club. Buckner was the first adult to really take an interest in him and encourage his running talent. After only three weeks of formal practice, Clarke was beating runners who had been training for years.
"Danny" Clarke was quickly becoming notorious in his neighborhood. Close to his 15th birthday, he was one of the top four Jamaican runners who qualified to attend the Junior CAC Games held in Vera Cruz, Mexico, alongside teammates who were elite runners from top schools and colleges in Jamaica. That is where he met the head coach of Calabar High School, Herb McKenley. As fate would have it, Coach McKenley was the first man to break 45 seconds in the 400-meter event, setting back-to-back world records in 1948 - which also happened to be Clarke's best event.
Clarke returned home a superstar with five different scholarship offers. Calabar High School was his obvious choice, but he was unable to come up with the bus fare necessary to attend school that fall. That is when the mother of a friend literally stepped in to help.
Mrs. Yuter found Clarke on the streets and stepped into a crowd of 15 young men to take him by the hand and lead him to her house, offering him a roof over his head as well as the bus fare he needed to claim his scholarship. Clarke declined her offer, finding it difficult to trust people and took to the streets again. But Yuter persisted and came to find the young man, taking him by the hand two more times before Clarke believed she was serious in her intentions. She made an appointment with the head coach and the principal of Calabar in order to finally get him enrolled. Years later the two found out they were actually distant cousins, and Clarke considers her like his own mother.
Clarke graduated from Calabar and attended the Barrientos Games in Cuba, went twice to the Carifta Games in the Bahamas and represented his school at the Pan American Relays in the Philippines. His success in track led to nine scholarship offers in the U.S. Clarke had planned to accept a scholarship to Abilene Christian University, but due to VISA issues he went to New Mexico Junior College.
He founded the Jamerican Flyers Track Club 14 years ago (which exists on donations as well as the tenacity of Clarke himself). He has seen 80 of his runners receive college scholarships, including phenom Ashley Collier, who was one of the top freshmen in the nation and graduated from Texas A&M with plans to go pro.
Clarke says, "I tell my story to motivate my runners. They have every opportunity to succeed here - they only need to take hold of it."
