Summer is no vacation for the staff at the Vine Street Community Center in Roxbury. The recreation center, which runs a summer program for local kids, was filled with the sound of children filing back and forth to and from various activities on a recent weekday.
David Hinton, the center’s administrative coordinator who has been at Vine Street since its start in 2001, kept a cool head in the midst of all the hustle. But on the top floor, there was a rare moment of quiet on the tranquil basketball court.
“This is where the magic happens for a lot of kids that went on the play Division I ball and beyond," Hinton said as he showed off the gym.
Not too long ago, Terrence Clarke called this court home. It’s where he would spend hours working on his game, eventually honing it to the level of playing for the University of Kentucky, a perennial contender for the NCAA championship.
Although Clarke only played in 8 games as a guard for the Wildcats due to injury, his so-evident potential made him a promising prospect who was expected to have his name called in the NBA Draft July 29.
But Clarke would never reach that stage. He died after being involved in a car accident in Los Angeles on April 22. He was 19. The news sent shockwaves through the basketball world.
Speaking to reporters the next day, Celtics star Jayson Tatum explained his relationship with Clarke.
“Over the last probably three years, I’ve been in the gym with him. He used to come to a lot of our home games,” Tatum said. “Came to my birthday dinner last year. You know, we talked a lot over the phone. I wish we would have talked more, but kind of like a little brother. Someone that reached out for advice. He was just a good kid. He was always joking, always laughing.”
As the world watches the next class of NBA talent graduate to the league, Boston’s basketball community has been reflecting on a player and person who changed the game without ever touching a pro court.
Hinton recalled Clarke wasn’t much of a player when he first started showing up at Vine Street as a 10-year old. But soon, he’d be getting to the gym at 6 in the morning to get a workout in and then sleeping it off in the building’s computer lab.
“Terrence walked around the building like he owned it,” Hinton joked. “And he did!”
Dexter Foy, Terrence’s mentor and AAU coach, said Clarke was already hovering around six feet tall in the fifth grade.
His combination of height, vision and skills handling and scoring the ball, mastered through countless hours in the gym, made Clarke, in Foy’s opinion, one of the best ever to come out of the Boston area.
“People didn’t get a chance to see how good he was. Like Terrence was good. I mean, really good,” Foy said. “He would have probably been the best thing for sure to come out of Boston. ... No disrespect to Patrick Ewing, he would have been up there with Pat, how about that? He would have been up there with Pat. He was that good.”
Ewing graduated from Cambridge Rindge and Latin in 1981, went on to play at Georgetown and had a Hall of Fame career in the NBA as a star center for the New York Knicks.
Dexter’s son, Jamari, met Clarke when he was in the fourth grade and was one of his closest friends. He was in Los Angeles with Clarke as he was getting ready for the draft and recalled seeing how focused he was on his business.
“I just know that he was going to get everything that he was supposed to get and more,” he said.
Clarke’s game speaks for itself, but everyone who knew him talks about how kind he was — or how loyal he was to his friends, or how much he was looking forward to taking care of his people and giving back.
Another common thread in the words from those who knew Clarke is just how hard it will be to watch this year’s draft.
“I may record it, I may not watch it right away,” Hinton said. “I'm not ready for that.”
Even though Clarke never got the chance to play under the NBA lights, his name will live on at Vine Street. Hinton said plans are in the works for the gym to be renamed in Clarke’s honor.
“We’re gonna make sure that he’s remembered at this center,” Hinton said.
The Roxbury sunlight beamed through the windows at the Vine Street gym. That hardwood gave Terrence Clarke a home away from home and someday soon, some young player who is running through the center’s halls may have the light shine on their own basketball journey on the court Clarke left behind.
