MH native enjoying start as men’s basketball coach at alma
mater
Morgan Hill
Follow the orchard-flanked state Route 32 for roughly a half-hour past Oroville and the suburban-oasis city that is Chico starts to materialize.
This is where Morgan Hill-native Greg Clink made a name for himself as a collegiate basketball player almost 14 years ago. It was a time when men’s basketball reigned supreme at Chico State University, when the Wildcats reached the NCAA Division II Championship Tournament in the 1992-93 season after winning the third of four consecutive Northern California Athletic Conference titles.
Times have certainly changed. Since that magical early-1990s dynasty ended in 1993-94 – Clink’s senior year – Chico State has yet to hang another league championship banner inside Acker Gym. The men’s basketball program has endured a fall from prominence. It picked up speed in 1998 following the Wildcats’ move into the California Collegiate Athletic Association, a conference brimming with fully funded men’s basketball programs – save for Chico State. Last season, the fall reached terminal velocity. In their final campaign under now-retired coach Puck Smith, who led Chico State to five NCAA tournament appearances during his 21 years with the program, the Wildcats ambled to a 7-20 finish. Three of their victories came in conference play.
“The biggest problem over the years was having to compete in the new league,” Smith said in a telephone interview Friday. “When we were in the Northern California Athletic Conference, our whole conference was non-scholarship. Then we moved into the California league and we were competing with scholarship schools. That’s a pretty big task.”
All of which is the perfect setup for Clink, 37, who on April 22 became the 11th head coach in 93 years of Chico State men’s basketball. Over the course of his career as a player, Clink had a reputation for not backing down to any challenge. At Britton Middle School, opposing coaches called him “the kid that couldn’t miss.” At Live Oak School, he carried the Acorns to their last league title as a junior in 1988. And at Gavilan College, Clink hit the hardwood with a work ethic few could match – a trait he carried with him as a player and graduate assistant coach to Chico State.
Which, alas, is where we find Clink in his first head-coaching job at the four-year college level. Having proved himself worthy as head coach at Gavilan and as an assistant at UC Davis and UC Santa Barbara, Clink’s only challenge now is directed from himself: Restore the glory he once shared with Chico State.
“Playing basketball here was a very special experience for me – I was thrilled to come back,” said Clink, who recently moved into a house in Chico with his wife, Courtney and three sons, Justin, Tyler and Ryan. “I want the guys I coach to have that same kind of experience. I think the main thing is establishing a winning culture and a good mindset.”
A journey of 1,000 miles begins with a single step, and for Clink, step one is recruiting. The Wildcats already boast a stable foundation with four returning starters and 11 lettermen, including the team’s leaders in steals (Justin Argenal) and blocked shots (Frank Igbekoyi), plus a first-team all-CCAA forward in Andy Bocian. Clink is building for both the present and future, though, and has made a promising start. The program has signed a pair of 6-foot-6 big men in Chris Sharp, a junior college transfer, and Cam Fenley, who averaged a double-double (16 points, 12.5 rebounds) a game as a senior last season at Monte Vista High School.
“There definitely are some bright spots,” Clink said. “We want guys that are passionate about improving and working hard on a daily basis.”
For the Wildcats, that attitude was no different when Smith roamed the sidelines. The longtime coaching veteran accepted only the best, Clink said.
Aside from winning games, Clink is focused on recruiting kids that will uphold the other side of a prized program: Academics. According to Chico State athletic director Anita Barker, that was one of the biggest clinchers in hiring Clink.
“His passion and his energy stood out – there was no one more excited about coming here,” Barker said. “He’s a tenacious recruiter and he knows what he wants – that’s very important. He wants his guys to get degrees.”
Simply put, Clink is looking for players that were just like him. As a prep star at Live Oak, Clink was the type of kid that worked on his game year-round.
“Yeah, I remember him all right,” former Live Oak coach Jim Green began. “I remember watching him hit 10 3-pointers in a game.”
Green also remembered absentmindedly telling Clink about a drill he saw at a basketball camp in which you balance a broomstick in front of you and try to shoot over it.
“It simulated a defender in front of you,” Green said. “I didn’t think Greg was listening to me but, surely enough, there I was one driving up to a hoop at the top of a hill one day only to see a broomstick standing there, fastened inside a lawn chair. I thought Judy Clink (Greg’s mother) must be missing her broomstick.”
After Green left Live Oak in 1992, he pushed Clink to consider coaching there, but Clink had loftier goals.
“His dream was to coach at the college level, and I told him to follow his dream,” Green recalled. “To be a college coach, you have to be a bit of a nomad. It’s hard to make the jump to college once you’re used to coaching in high school. It’s hard work no matter how you take it, but good things happen to good people.”
Smith thought the same upon learning of Clink’s hiring.
“I’ve coached for more than 40 years, and there’s no one I respect more than him,” Smith said. “My best advice to him was to be yourself … Greg’s strength is who he is; the way he behaves and the way he does things. He’s going to be a success – there’s no question in my mind about it.”
