From L.A. to Boston, basketball mourns Terrence Clarke's death

Terrence Clarke handles the ball for Kentucky against Kansas on Dec. 1, 2020, in Indianapolis.

Staff Writer

April 24, 2021 4 AM PT

Before his name became the subject of tragic headlines that quickly spread from coast to coast, Terrence Clarke was at a Chatsworth gym doing what he loved most.

Lorenzo Davis saw him there Thursday morning and beamed with pride at having once gotten to coach Clarke at a Pangos All-American basketball camp. He would always remember how the blue-chip prospect attentively listened to the pointers of his random coach, how Clarke graciously posed for a picture with Davis’s eight-year-old son, Tytus. Now Clarke was back in Los Angeles, pursuing his dream of becoming an NBA draft pick.

“I hadn’t seen him since he went to Kentucky,” said Davis, an assistant coach at Heritage Christian. “He looked like he was ready. Body right, in shape.”

Davis and Clarke exchanged a quick greeting before moving on with their days. A few hours later, Clarke left the 1st Place Sports Complex and drove south on Winnetka Avenue, where he sped into a truck that was turning left on Nordhoff Street, police said. Clarke’s vehicle caromed into a pole before coming to a stop.

The 19-year-old native of Dorchester, Mass., a working-class neighborhood in South Boston, did not survive the crash, sending the basketball world into mourning.

Davis found out — like most of Clarke’s expansive network of confidants, mentors and friends — through a breaking news notification on his phone.

“That kid, man, he was born for success,” Davis said Friday. “His smile, when I say it moved the room … the room. If you had a bad day, that dude would smile, and you’re good.”

Clarke had plenty to be happy about these days. Though he had struggled to live up to his five-star billing during his one season at Kentucky, which missed the NCAA tournament for the first time since 2013, that did not deter Clarke from declaring for the draft. Clarke had recently signed with L.A.-based Klutch Sports, joining agent Rich Paul’s exclusive clientele that includes LeBron James, Anthony Davis and Ben Simmons.

The reverberations created by the news of Clarke’s death started in L.A. but registered maximum impact in Boston.

“Not sure how much I want to talk about the game, when you consider he’s a Boston kid … those kids are important to us here,” Boston Celtics coach Brad Stevens told reporters after his team’s victory over the Phoenix Suns on Thursday night. “I never met him. My son looks up to him. Hard to talk about a basketball game.”

Celtics stars Jaylen Brown, Jayson Tatum and Kemba Walker had taken Clarke, a shining star in the Northeast basketball scene, under their wings. Brown posted a picture of him and Clarke on his Instagram account, which read, “Words can’t even explain … what I hate the most [is] the world didn’t even get to see how much potential you really had …”

Brown then asked for the NBA to find a way to have Clarke’s name called on draft night in July.

Clarke had come so far from his adolescent days when he would show up to the Vine Street Community Center in Roxbury to play. Back then, he wasn’t tearing up the competition.

“Couldn’t play when he first got here,” David Hinton, the administrative coordinator at the community center, said Friday morning. “But he was a good kid, and he started developing a pretty good skill set and a really good work ethic, and before you know it, right before our eyes, he turned into a superstar.

“By talking to him, you never would have known he was a basketball star. You would have to see him play, because he didn’t talk like that. He was just a regular, everyday kid.”

Even after Clarke evolved into one of the top prospects in his class as a prototypical NBA wing, he would call Hinton and let him know he wanted the gym open at 6 a.m.

“We did everything but give him the keys to the building,” Hinton said.

Boston shares Los Angeles’s reputation for hanging NBA banners, but the city is not the same hotbed for grass-roots basketball talent. As a result, the city felt deeply invested in Clarke’s success.

“He meant so much for the city of Boston,” said Todd Quarles, the director of Expressions Elite, Clarke’s AAU team. “Every kid in New England with a basketball dream looked up to him. I will miss him dearly. Every coach and player in our program will miss him dearly.”

Kentucky coach John Calipari flew to L.A. on Friday to be with Clarke’s family, including his mother, Osmine, whom Hinton said was at the scene of the crash. Brandon Boston, his Kentucky teammate this year and a former star at Sierra Canyon, was also there, according to reports.

Calipari said he spent his time on the plane writing a letter about Clarke, which he posted on his website, CoachCal.com, after he landed.

“He was as caring of a person as I have ever coached,” Calipari wrote. “His enthusiasm and energy — not just for basketball, for life — are what we all hope to have in our journey. Terrence had figured that part out — that if you wake up every day with a smile on your face and a joy in everything you do, this life is beautiful.

“I think that part of the reason why you see [an] unbelievable magnitude of heartache today from everyone cross our game and our country. Terrence had that spirit about him that rubbed off on every single person that was fortunate to cross paths with him.”

Calipari relayed a conversation that he had with Paul after the accident.

“We could hardly speak,” he wrote. “We were both in tears. When Rich calmed down, he said to me, ‘Cal, he was going to be a first-round draft pick. The stuff he was doing, the shape he was in and the mission he was on, he was going to do this.’ It makes me even more devastated.”

That was the confident Terrence Clarke whom Lorenzo Davis saw at the gym Thursday morning, the one that whom Sierra Canyon star guard Amari Bailey had run into recently too.

“The basketball community is hurt. I’m hurt,” Bailey told the Times’ Eric Sondheimer on Thursday night after Sierra Canyon’s 103-80 victory over Culver City. “It’s another fallen soldier gone too soon. … I was just with him a couple days ago, so hearing about it, it was hard for me to come out and play. I know he would do that for me. I know he’s looking down on me and protecting me and all our brothers.”

To Davis, the basketball world can be very small in moments of tragedy. He was but one of hundreds who shared a moment with Clarke, however fleeting, that felt special.

“You might hoop with a person but it feels like you’ve known them forever because of what basketball brings,” Davis said. “This hurts right here.”

The coach couldn’t help but go back to Jan. 26, 2020, and the deaths of Kobe and Gianna Bryant, the crushing beginning to a steady stream of incalculable loss, and how he pulled his car over and cried that day, having no idea what was still to come over the next 15 months.

“This situation hasn’t even hit me yet,” Davis said. “With COVID, this whole situation has been crazy, and just when you think things are getting better ...

“You have to cherish every day. You never know if that’s your last day.”