Coach Octavius “Ocky” Clark is a staff member at Winter Springs High School, as the dean and the head coach of the Winter Springs Cross Country and Track teams. Coach Clark has been coaching for a total of 30 years. His first coaching job was in 1995 at Purdue University. After working with the men’s Cross Country team at Purdue for two years, he moved to Florida and began working at WSHS.
Because he thinks the girl’s Cross Country team at Oviedo High School and the boy’s Cross Country team at Hagerty High School will be difficult to beat, Coach Clark is making sure to efficiently condition and train the Cross Country teams. This means a combination of different techniques, including weight training, hill-running, long distance trails, and sprinting. “I like utilizing Central Winds Park a lot because its grass, it gives you different types of terrain to run on,” Coach Clark stated.
After coaching for so long, Coach Clark prefers Cross Country over Track. Although, if he were to coach a different sport, he would choose to coach Swimming. When he retires, he plans to travel. Coach Clark owns a storage business where he stores boats, RV’s, and campers, which he hopes will become more successful. While Coach Clark is mainly known for his sports passion, his main passions are his family, friends, and country, since he served in the Air Force. He claims his biggest accomplishments are his children.
Coach Clark states how the students at Winter Springs High School keep him going and upbeat, as they are “a great set of funny, funny kids,” he stated. He enjoys joking with the students and staff. The staff and other coaches at WSHS are easy to interact with, “we’re like a family,” he said. Coach Clark is a dedicated coach to Cross Country and Track and does a phenomenal job of encouraging his athletes to become better runners.
