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TOP STORY OF THE DAY, brought to you free by WICU: Childhood injury almost kept Clark from being voice of the Northview Knights
Growing up in Indianapolis, sports were what Corey Clark’s mind would wander towards on a daily basis.
Yes, he enjoyed playing them, but he wanted to talk about them, specifically as a broadcaster.
“I remember sitting on the couch with my dad watching games telling him I wanted to do that. He would ask, ‘Play the game?’ I would say, ‘No, talk about the game. Be a broadcaster,’” Clark recalls.
But during the summer in between his fifth and sixth grade years in school, Clark’s bout with sinus problems, which he says he still deals with to this day, got really bad.
So bad the acid reflux he dealt with sent stomach acid up his throat, burning his vocal cords.
It resulted in his voice changing despite non-stop trips to the doctor to figure out a remedy for the alteration and ended up creating an unwanted nickname.
“My nickname through middle school was ‘Froggy.’ If you have ever seen the Little Rascals movie and know the character Froggy, that’s why. I sounded like him,” said Clark. “I hated that name, because this isn’t supposed to be what I am known for. I didn’t want to be the guy who had a raspy voice. I wanted to have the radio voice. And once I got to middle school, Froggy became who I was and almost gave up hope.”
Clark said medicine, voice classes and patience helped.
But his voice still didn’t sound like it had previously.
That was until he began high school. At that point, something changed. Somehow, someway, his voice returned, and so did his itch to become a sports broadcaster.
“Then I got lucky. I don’t know if it was puberty or what, but once I got into high school, my voice went back to normal,” said Clark.
During his junior and senior years of high school at Danville, Clark would spend half of his days there before heading over to Ben Davis where he took a radio broadcasting class.
He began calling games for the Giants’ school station, WBDG, and quickly gained the confidence and realization that broadcasting was something he could do well.
“I worked on the tone of my voice [with WBDG],” said Clark. “This is where I realized I can do this. Jon Easter, the General Manager at WBDG, was a big help.”
Clark continued to chase his dream in college at Indiana State University where he called games and was the Sports Director his freshman year and then the Student Station Manager his junior and senior years working alongside station general manager Rich Green, who Clark credits for helping him control his voice instead of screaming during exciting plays.
He also worked part-time with Emmis Communications in the promotions department before the company’s stations were split up and sold to Midwest Communications and DLC Media.
Clark reached out to DLC Media owner Dave Crooks, informing him he would like to work for him, if possible.
“When he heard that we were bringing the stations back to Brazil and increasing the cluster of stations that surround Terre Haute, he wanted me to make sure I knew he was available,” Crooks said.
Clark made, ‘a positive impression’ on Crooks, who then offered him the backup play-by-play spot. But one month before the first Northview football game was scheduled to be kicked off, Clark received a call asking if he could fill in.
He did and never looked back, calling nearly every Northview game until he graduated from Indiana State.
He then headed south to host a sports talk show in Louisiana before moving west to become the morning host for a country radio station in Oklahoma.
After the birth of his son, Clark decided moving back to the Wabash Valley was the best decision for himself and his family. And waiting for him was a call from Crooks to bring back to DLC Media.
“I went out of my way to say, ‘Hey, I don’t have a full-time sports job like you would like, but if you would want to try advertising, I have a hole.’ I do a little personality profile to see if someone would fit that description. We sent that information into our vendor and it suggested he would be a perfect fit for advertising sales. So, I offered him a full-time advertising spot with the chance to become the Sports Director and continue the high school coverage. I basically handed the reigns of the play-by-play position over to him,” said Crooks.
Clark, working alongside color analyst Brad Wallace, has become the official voice of the Northview Knights – a title he does not take for granted.
“I’m just grateful to be in this position, painting a picture of the game to the Knights’ fans listening at home or in their cars,” said Clark. “Not many people are my age around here doing games like I do.
“It’s something I don’t take lightly. I’ve grown to not only just be the guy who calls the games, but I’m also a big fan. You can hear it in my broadcasts – I’m a fan. I hate when they lose just like the players and fans do. I love the athletes, coaches and athletic administrators.”
Crooks knows he has the right person for the job based on the feedback he’s received from the Clay County listeners.
“I have full confidence in his on-air ability and his technical ability. He’s never let me down,” said Crooks of Clark. “The coaches and players seem to like him, and the fan comments we get from our listeners are very positive. For a 24-year-old young man, he displays a lot of maturity and experience.”
The experience Crooks speaks of comes from the many years of hard work to get to the place of calling regional basketball games for a radio station Clark works at full-time.
He still can’t wrap his mind around how his broadcasting career went from being nicknamed ‘Froggy’ because of a raspy voice to one that listeners know and love as soon as they turn their radio dials to 106.9 FM in Brazil or 99.5 FM in Terre Haute, but Clark is grateful to say the least.
“I am a kid who wasn’t supposed to be able to do this. A kid who had his vocal cords burnt by stomach acid. I went from ‘Froggy’ to ‘Voice of the Knights.’ I have a good radio voice and I don’t understand how that happened,” Clark said.
