FAYETTEVILLE — A rebounder, Mike Anderson believes, faces his calling knowing Hollywood never will call for his face.
“You can tell a guy when he rebounds because you look at him he’s got a lot of battle scars,” saidthe Arkansas Razorbacks basketball coach. “You look at them pretty boys and they are big and have no scars - I don’t think they are doing a whole lot of rebounding. To do that you have got to get in the mix. You are going to be knocked down.”
So count Coty Clarke out of graduating from the Razorbacks’ rebounding man to Hollywood leading man.
“Coty,” Anderson said with relish, “ is one of those guys who mixes it up.”
Clarke, the junior college transfer forward, laughs appreciatively with his coach’s premise that reounding is no place for a pretty face.
“Yeah,” Clarke said. “We don’t have one of those guys on the team.We just like to play physical and get after it. That’s going to be the team, pretty tough. You have got to be tough mentally and physically to play for Coach A.”
Clarke just had his first official preseason practice with the Razorbacks last Friday, but from recruiting him out of Lawson State (Ala.) Community College and Arkansas’ four exhibition games August tour of Italy, Anderson knows he has a rebounder likely to keep the training room in stitches.
“Coty Clarke in Italy showed me a guy that can bang,” Anderson said. “He doesn’t mind hitting people or getting hit. Whether it’s the offensive glass or the defensiveglass, he’s got a knack for keeping balls alive and he goes and gets the ball on the rebound. He has a great nose for the ball.”
The rebounding leader averaging 13.5 boards at Lawson State, Clarke led the Razorbacks in Italy averaging 8.3 boards playing less minutes as Anderson used his entire roster every game.
Anderson beamed that Clarke wasn’t content just to rebound but assist his team capitalizing on his rebounds.
“The thing that impresses me ishim rebounding the basketball and getting out and finding people in transition,” Anderson said.
Arkansas’ second-year head coach but an Arkansas assistant for 17 years under Nolan Richardson, Anderson likens Clarke to Lenzie Howell, the great junior college transfer forward of Arkansas’ 1989 and 1990 Southwest Conference championship teams including the 1990 Final Four.
Clarke, listed 6-7, is taller than Howell, 6-4, while Howell could shoot it better, Anderson said, but their solid, stoic approaches reflect like a mirror even if 22 years apart.
“They have the same knack for the ball,” Anderson said. “Like Lenzie, Coty won’t back down from nobody. He’s a tough kid and he’ll be able to guard a guard and guard a forward, operate at the front of the press, the back of the press.”
If basketball players wore sleeves, Clarke’s apparently would be rolled up.
“He does a lot of the grunt work,” Anderson said. “Just a lot of the dirty stuff. For a coach like myself, I like guys that get into the trenches.”
Sports, Pages 19 on 10/17/2012