Mike Clark didn’t become a sportswriter to chase scores. He stuck with it because of stories, like the one about the Venezuelan teens who found their footing in a new country through high school baseball.
Some had lived in shelters. Most didn’t speak English. But they had baseball. That gave them a way to connect, to belong, to feel like themselves again.
“Playing baseball was kind of the in for them, something from their old life that was still around in their new life. And it helped them create new support groups, new friend groups, right away,” Clark said.
That story, which he reported last year, is the kind Clark says he is proud to tell. For decades, his focus has been the people behind the plays, especially in communities where coverage is too often overlooked.
Clark is sports editor for Southwest Regional Publications, where he oversees coverage for the Regional News and Southwest News-Herald. He also contributes to the Chicago Sun-Times and has done freelance work for Chicago Public Schools’ sports media team.
“There are a lot of stories in the Public League,” he said. “They used to get told a lot more. They don’t get told as much now.”
In May, Clark was honored with the Illinois High School Association’s Distinguished Media Service Award. The recognition, which he received during the Chicago Public League baseball championships, is voted on by previous winners, journalists and IHSA staff.
“It’s nice because it’s voted on by people who understand the work,” Clark said. “Definitely not expected.”
Clark recently interviewed a freshman discus champion from Manteno. In conversation, he learned she also plays elite girls hockey and commutes to Milwaukee twice a week for practice.
“You just go out and talk to people,” he said. “That’s kind of the fun of it.”
Clark’s stories often start with a simple question: What else do you do?
“I always ask kids if they play another sport,” he said. “That almost always leads to something good.”
He’s not chasing viral moments or highlight stats. He’s looking for something the reader didn’t know, and that the athlete may not have thought to share.
“What I thought was a decent story winds up being an even better story,” he said. “That’s the fun of it.”
Clark never played high school sports. He wore glasses from a young age and joked that he lacked hand-eye coordination.
“I think I have an appreciation for people who do those things well because I can’t,” he said.
His love of journalism began at home. His father, John Clark, had once been editor of his high school paper in Chicago.
“We grew up in a household where newspapers were around all the time,” Clark said. “It was just part of daily life.”
He started writing as a teenager in Manteno after responding to a newspaper’s open call for local coverage.
“I didn’t think, OK, this is going to be my career for 40 years,” he said. “I just thought it was something I could do.”
Among the stories he’s proudest of is one about Harper High, a historic Public League school in Englewood that was closed during a wave of school shutdowns. By the end, only 49 students remained in a building built for 1,600. But the football team kept playing.
“That was a story about what happens when a high school, the center of a neighborhood, goes away,” Clark said.
Clark began reporting in the early 1970s, just as Title IX opened new doors for girls in sports.
“It was pretty bare bones at the beginning,” he said. “Now there’s a pro women’s hockey league, a pro soccer league, the WNBA. That’s been a fun story to cover.”
What has stayed consistent over the decades is Clark’s focus on people.
“You want people to walk away from a story feeling like they learned something they didn’t know,” he said. “And hopefully, they were entertained a little along the way.”
Last fall, he returned to Manteno High School, where his journalism journey began. Before he left, he showed a student athlete his senior portrait, still hanging in the hallway.
“That’s me,” he told her. “From 50 years ago.”