Albuquerque Journal

Irish Coach Smiling About Visit
By Glen Rosales For the Journal

On the surface, there's very little to connect the University of New Mexico with national icon Notre Dame.
      
 Except the men's soccer programs at the two schools have forged a successful and ongoing relationship.
       
Both are considered powers in the sport, with the Fighting Irish ranked third after finishing among the final eight the past two seasons. UNM is ranked 19th, returning eight starters from a squad that lost in the first round of the NCAA Tournament.
       
This will be the teams' third exhibition match in the past four seasons, although this will be the first in Albuquerque. The schools will meet for the second time in the regular season next year when the Lobos travel to South Bend, Ind., for a tournament that also will include Indiana.
      
 It's not just the desire of the coaches to provide a quality preseason test for their squads that brings the schools together, however.
       
There are deeper pipelines, as well.
      
 Fighting Irish coach Bobby Clark knows Sandia girls coach Vladi Stanojevic. Stanojevic set a number of still-standing scoring records at Dartmouth while playing for Clark, who makes occasional offseason excursions to Albuquerque to train some of Stanojevic's club teams.
       
Clark paid the Matadors a visit Tuesday and was out at St. Pius on Monday, favoring the two programs with quick training sessions before putting his own team through its paces.
       
“It was time to pay my dues and come down here,” he said. “It's a pretty exciting thing to me because I have so many friends in the area.”
       
There's a deeper connection, however.
      
 His youngest son, Jaime Clark, was an assistant coach at New Mexico for four seasons under Lobos coach Jeremy Fishbein before spending two seasons with his father at Notre Dame. Clark is beginning his first season as head coach at Harvard, hiring away top UNM assistant Carl Junot in the process.
     
  “He was a great mentor to Jamie when he was here,” Clark said of Fishbein. “I've been very impressed with the program he's built. He's done a wonderful job here.”
      
 Fishbein and Clark have since forged a friendship that the coaches value.
      
 “I have a lot of respect for him and his program,” Fishbein said. “I've gotten to know him over the past five or six years and when you can have someone you respect so much become a friend, that's special.”
       
But coach Clark's roots to Albuquerque go back still further.
       
His oldest son, Tommy Clark, is a doctor who did his residency at University Hospital and played for the New Mexico Chiles. It was through that connection that he got to meet and know Sartans coach Michael Strati, who also played for the Chiles in the that era of the mid 1990s.
      
 “There's no question that Albuquerque holds a special place in my heart,” coach Clark said. “I've had some very happy times here. It seems like it's been long overdue that I bring a team here.”
      
 When the teams actually step on the field, the coaches also will get the chance to see how their squads fares against one of the best in the country.
      
 “We're expecting a very tough game,” Clark said. “We've heard how tough it is to win there. They have a great soccer environment. Albuquerque is a great soccer town.”