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Growing up in Pleasanton in the 1970s was a special experience. The city was smaller then and it seemed like everyone knew everyone else.
You hung out with the kids that lived around you, and the bond was golden with your group of friends. Kids I met back then have become lifelong friends, and ones who I still talk with today.
So, when you lose one of that special group, it is as if you lost a family member. When I got the call from longtime friend Keith Clay recently that his younger brother Mark had passed a few weeks back, it was like losing a brother.
Growing up in the same area brought us together as friends, but it was through the sport of soccer that made us even tighter. If you played soccer anywhere in Northern California, you knew of Mark and Keith Clay.
Mark Clay cut his teeth with the Ballistic United Soccer Club, then at Amador Valley and Hoover High in Fresno, before taking his talents to UCLA.
Mark was one person who will always bring a smile to your face when thinking of him.
“He always made people laugh,” said longtime friend and former teammate Mike Harris. “He was so smart, so you had to get his humor. Did we have some great times…”
Mark was big, strong, fast and intimidating. He was two years younger than me, so I didn’t get a chance to play on the same team as Mark until we were adults, but he played for my Dad so I had plenty of chances to see him play.
He was a force.
“He was a brick,” said Mike Nieto, a former teammate of Mark at BUSC and Amador, and then played against Mark at UCLA, when he was at Cal. “I remember him as a teammate that you were glad he was on your team. You knew that he would cover your butt. He was that enforcer that every team needs.”
Mark also played football for the Amador varsity football team as a sophomore.
“He was a stud,” said Harris, who was also a football teammate of Mark. “He was so good, but football never was his passion. It was always soccer for him.”
Ballistic United technical director Kevin Crow, himself an alumnus of Ballistic and Amador, was older than Mark and didn’t see him play much, but he still knew of Mark.
“He was a talented and athletic player,” said Crow, a former United States national team member. “I always thought he had a good heart. He was the kind of guy that would always have your back.”
Besides playing at UCLA, Mark was also part of the U.S. Olympic training program and dabbled in the professional ranks.
One other thing some may not have known about Mark is he was an uncle to George Foreman Jr. When George Foreman was the heavyweight champion, he lived in Livermore and trained at the Alameda County Fairgrounds. He was together with Mark’s sister Pam and the couple had George Jr.
Mark and George Jr. had such a strong bond that after Mark passed, George Jr. posted a lengthy, emotional tribute to Uncle Mark on Facebook. It brought me to tears.
There is going to be a celebration of life for Mark on Saturday, Sept. 26 at the ranch of Mike Harris in Livermore. The event, which will start at 3 p.m., will be a potluck, and everyone is encouraged to bring a picture of Mark to share on the memory wall.
Guests will also be invited to share their favorite memories of Mark. For more information, send me an email.
Editor’s note: Dennis Miller is a contributing sports writer for the Pleasanton Weekly. To contact him about his “Pleasanton Preps” column, email acesmag@aol.com.
Please send my deep condolences to his family, friends, and teammates. He was another great example of a great soccer talent out of Pleasanton