Courtesy of Sam Rubin '95/Yale Athletics

Jenna Clark ’24 is a blur on the fastbreak. Yale’s sophomore point guard has always been a dynamic transition scorer. As the game around her speeds up, she finds openings where it seems like there are none.

Those around Clark like to compare her to NBA legend ‘Pistol’ Pete Maravich. Both like to make the flashy pass when the opportunity presents itself and can score from anywhere on the floor. Clark explains that she likes to make the game fun. If she has the choice between the fundamental play and the extraordinary, it is in her nature to favor the latter. 

“She’s always been competitive in a very quiet way,” Jeff Clark said, reflecting on his daughter’s sports career. “She’s always had this smooth swagger. Ever since she was four or five, you could tell she was special. It didn’t matter what sport she was playing. The coaches on the other side would beg you to sub her out … she’s always been a really good athlete, undersized, but very feisty. She’s much tougher than her personality shows.”

Family, tattoos and a special bond with home

Clark’s relationship with her family has been a key part of her development as both a basketball player and a person. Even playing away from home, Clark wears her family as a badge of honor, with the tattoos on her arm bearing reminders of home. 

Nearly all of her ink, Clark explained in an interview with the News, is devoted to her family. On her left arm is a tattoo that she got with her sisters, a silhouette of her grandparents and the year her parents got married. Depictions of her grandmother’s street sign and handwritten message of “be great” adorn her right arm. Finally, the Pittsburgh skyline — “I think our skyline’s the best in the country,” she explains — graces her left thigh and a Bible verse, her first tattoo, is inscribed on her ribs.

While the youngest Clark always knew she would want tattoos, she met some resistance in the process; Her older sister Lauren forced her to write an essay explaining why she wanted tattoos, and so Jenna went to her room and came back with a two page justification. And so the matter was settled.

Clark explains that to her, the tattoos fit right in with her personality. “I think it’s something that makes me different,” the Pittsburgh native explained. “And I’ve always been a little different. I like it. I think they’re really cool. They’re all for my family or my roots, so they definitely mean a lot, and I love being able to wear them on me every day.”

Taking the reins

On the court, Clark’s fierce loyalty is reflected in her relationships with her teammates. While her father lamented her inability to ever criticize, even constructively, any of her teammates, Clark’s willingness to commit to her team is part of what makes her such a great point guard.

Yale head coach Allison Guth praised Clark’s ability to handle the responsibility that comes with the position. Stepping into the role of primary facilitator this year, Clark has been great, leading the Ivy League with six assists per game.

“I think that she values her responsibility, and is learning how to navigate with it,” Guth said. “She wants to raise the level of those around her. When we’re playing our best basketball, it’s because of the way she’s setting up the table for us to really go eat.”

Alex Cade ’22, one of the veterans and emotional leaders of this year’s Yale squad, echoed Guth’s praise of her point guard’s leadership. 

While Cade has been the beneficiary of many of Clark’s pocket passes out of the pick-and-roll on the court, she chose to focus more on what the sophomore has brought to the team in terms of her personality and toughness.

“She brings light to so many situations and she’s constantly a source of laughter on our team. She’s stepped into a dominant role on this team and has done so with integrity, always open to criticism, while being confident in her abilities. She’s feisty, which is beneficial on the court and off — I wouldn’t want to get in a fight with her, but I’m glad she’s backing me up when we’re on the court.”

Skills trump height

Leading the league in assists and helping to guide Yale to an Ivy Madness berth are heady accomplishments for a sophomore. But her on-court success wasn’t always guaranteed. To understand where Clark is now, it’s important to look back on the trajectory of her career.

Growing up, Clark found her relatively diminutive stature to be an obstacle in achieving her basketball dreams. Still, she played up with older age groups through her AAU basketball career, pushing herself to compete against opponents with tremendous physical advantages. But her skill set allowed her to continue to dominate. 

Ronnie Drennen, Clark’s skills trainer from home, described her as one of the most skilled players he’s ever worked with. 

“She wants to spend as much time in the gym,” Drennen said. “She’s always had a chip on her shoulder. She hasn’t been the strongest, the tallest, the fastest, but she’s so smart and she’s so skilled. Her work ethic and her drive is what separates her, and that’s the reason why she’s in the position she’s in.”

That drive has long been part of Clark’s identity. Growing up, she constantly did drills she saw NBA players doing, dribbling two or three basketballs at the same time in her basement or practicing in the rain if she had to.

While her dad pushed her, much of her work ethic came from within. Clark said that she always drew motivation from those who doubted her because of her small size. 

After using her first year of high school to develop her skills and become quicker, Clark grew a few inches before tenth grade to finally shrink the gap between herself and her peers. The combination of her training and added inches translated to on-court success, as she had a great sophomore season for the Thomas Jefferson Jaguars, which she then followed up with an even more impressive junior year. 

When she got the ball in the open court, it seemed like nobody could stop the shifty point guard. Her highlights from those years take care to circle her on the film before each clip. And it’s good they do, because Clark can be hard to pick up in the crowd.

But as soon as the clip starts, there’s no mistaking her. The fastest player on the court, Clark weaves in and out of traffic at full speed on the fastbreak before pulling up for a jump shot or hitting a teammate with a no-look pass.

Speed bumps at Yale

Around her junior year, the recruitment offers began to roll in. Her father explained that the entire family would almost cry every time another offer arrived as they saw years of hard work coming to fruition.

For Guth, recruiting Clark was a no-brainer. 

“We look for head, heart, and guts,” the Yale’s women’s basketball head coach said. “All those three things aligned. And where [Clark] stood out to me the most is that I felt as though she wanted to come here to bring Yale women’s basketball to another level in terms of a championship program. And as much as she knew what Yale was going to provide her in her life, she wanted basketball to be at the forefront of her experience.”

But the love that Yale had for Clark was not reciprocal at first. According to her father, Clark was reluctant to even visit New Haven during the recruiting process.

Several of her family members and coaches, however, managed to persuade her to give the school a chance, repeating over and over again “Jenna, it’s Yale. You just got the Golden Ticket.” Between Guth’s recruiting pitch and the immediate bond she felt with her future teammates, Clark quickly fell in love with the school.

The opportunity to compete at one of the highest-ranked mid-major programs in the country combined with the top-notch academic programs made for a compelling pitch. Clark also added that the ability to travel home over breaks to spend time with her family was a big selling point in her mind.

When she made it to Yale, though, Clark was presented with a new series of obstacles. In addition to homesickness, as she learned to live away from her family and the usual challenges of a first-year college student, she found herself stuck behind all-Ivy point guard Roxy Barahman ’20 on the depth chart.

“It’s definitely a humbling experience,” Clark said. “I learned so much from her individually, but also the lesson that you have to wait your turn. I took it as, ‘Oh, I have a chance to learn from someone who’s proven to be an all-Ivy caliber player …’ I used it to learn from her, and learn what I could do to win the starting spot, and to develop my game.”

Coach Guth praised Clark for her ability to gracefully deal with the adversity of adjusting to a backup role. She focused on how the transition forced her away from a comparison theory attitude and towards a growth mindset where each new challenge presented a learning opportunity.

As a first-year, Clark scored just 22 points to go along with 13 assists for the season, playing just under nine minutes per game. Her shooting percentages dipped from her high school numbers. But none of this seemed to faze her, as she continued to hone her craft.

A year off to improve

With the cancellation of the 2020 season due to the COVID-19 pandemic, Clark elected to take the year off. That decision, perhaps more than anything else, is responsible for the transformation from reserve guard to league-leader in both assists and minutes per game.

Clark explained that the decision to take a year off was relatively easy for her. “The biggest thing for me,” she said, “is that I committed to play four years at Yale. I want to build something special here. When I’m 30, I’ll look back and be glad that I had a full college experience and the chance to play with my teammates. The biggest thing was just wanting to build something, and it takes time to build things.”

During her year off, Clark spent five or six days a week in the gym. She volunteered to help deliver food to the elderly via InstaCart during the pandemic and found an internship with a company called BondSports, where she helped sell software the company was producing and worked to create club memberships to enable people to use different workout facilities. But basketball and family were always at the forefront.

Entering the preseason this year, it was unclear exactly what her responsibilities would be. But it was clear that Clark had taken her game up a level over the course of her gap year, and she quickly proved that she was capable of taking on any responsibilities that came her way.

Finding a balance

This year hasn’t been perfect. Both Clark individually and the Bulldogs have struggled with turnovers all season long. Some of that comes with settling into the role — Clark is playing her first season as a lead point guard since her senior year of high school three years ago. 

“She got very limited time her freshman year and then took a year off,” assistant coach John Miller, who works closely with Yale’s guards, said. “This is basically her freshman year all over again so every experience she’s had is brand new. The great thing about her is she watches a ton of film. We go over everything, and she’s learning on the fly.”

Guth and Clark both recognize, however, that some of the turnovers are less excusable, especially when Clark tries to force a flashy pass when nothing’s open. Clark explained that she has had to wage an internal battle at times this year between pushing the pace and controlling the flow of the game.

Clark’s teammate, Camilla Emsbo ’23 is one of the league’s most dominant interior forces and a second-team all-Ivy player as a sophomore. As such, the Bulldogs need to slow the game down on occasion to make sure they can get her the ball. Learning when these times are has been part of the development process for Clark.

“Success is more of a jungle gym than a ladder,” Guth said. “You get better or get worse; you never stay the same … I think that she’s absolutely improving, even if there’s a day that’s statistically a step back… That kid is so fun to coach because of how hard she works. You might see a behind-the-back dropoff pass and get excited. But she also needs to learn when to put a little mustard on that hot dog and when she needs to get it done.”

Nearly every game seems to feature some form of razzle-dazzle from the Pittsburgh native. One of her favorites, she notes, is running in transition before pitching it back to backcourt running mate Klara Aastroem ’24. But it’s just as likely that she’ll slip into the lane and make the ball somehow magically appear in Emsbo or Cade’s hands for an easy layup.

The assists are only part of Clark’s contributions, as she chips in 11.7 points and nearly five rebounds per game. Her three-point shooting has been a key point of improvement from her first year, up from 15 percent all the way to 35 percent.

Clark’s improvement this year has been one of the driving forces in Yale’s impressive season, as she and the Bulldogs have already clinched their spot in the Ivy League conference tournament.

Having an impact

Clark is, in her father’s words, “a homebody.” But now when she returns to her old gyms in Pittsburgh, there’s more than just family waiting for her. 

As Drennen said in an interview with the News, “When she comes into the gym, it turns everybody’s game up because they’re like, ‘Wow, that’s Jenna Clark!’ Those girls want to be just like Jenna. She’s just a great role model by being intelligent, a hard worker, and a great human being.”

This opportunity to be a role model means everything to Clark. One of her favorite parts about being where she is now is that she has the ability to take on more of a mentorship role with younger athletes in her hometown. 

Reflecting on her impact in the community, Clark points to the fact that young girls who are small for their age will often approach her looking for advice or just confidence. And now Clark can be a role model and reassure them that their size doesn’t dictate their potential.

One of the most exciting things about Clark’s breakout this season is that she still has two more years ahead of her at Yale. For somebody who loves to push the pace and is always accelerating, the future is never far away. Looking forward to the future, Clark knows exactly what she’s trying to achieve.

“I want us to win an Ivy League championship. I want us to make the NCAA tournament. Those are the two main goals. But after Yale, in my future, I see myself working in the game … I always want to be a part of it and help people achieve their best potential, and be the kind of person that a lot of coaches and trainers were to me.”

Clark currently ranks eleventh in the nation in assists per game.