University of Massachusets Athletics
Destined for Fame on the Diamond
 |  Doug Clark. |
By Matt Abt
Let's play "What if?" for a moment.
What if Doug Clark and Ron Villone, two former UMass football players now playing professional baseball, had never traded in their shoulder pads? What if they had chosen to pursue gridiron glory and had never realized that they were destined for the diamond?
"We would've missed out on a couple of good players, no question about that," said UMass baseball coach Mike Stone. "There are a few times when you have an opportunity to work with some special people, and these two young men are right at the top of the list."
Doug Clark is a top prospect in the San Francisco Giants' organization and is expected to split the upcoming season between minor league affiliates. Ron Villone recently signed a one-year contract with the Cincinnati Reds and has earned a regular spot in their rotation. Their names are forever etched in the annals of UMass baseball. Yet both of these talented athletes came to UMass to play football.
"I just love going out there and hitting people - legally," said Villone, who hit so hard that he was recruited by a number of Division I-A college football programs as a free safety. But Villone was told that he was too small to play tight end, his position of choice, at the big-time level, and accepted a football scholarship to UMass. Villone earned All-Yankee Conference honors as a tight end and caught the eye of a few NFL scouts before turning in his pads.
Clark also had dreams of NFL stardom.
"When I came to UMass, my goal was to make it to the NFL," says Clark, who as a senior led Springfield's Central High School to victory in the Division I Super Bowl and was named the most outstanding player in Western Massachusetts. Clark was recruited as a quarterback, but wound up playing wide receiver and special teams in order to utilize his athletic abilities.
"We felt that he would not play quarterback for us right away, but he was such a good athlete that we needed to get him on the field," said former UMass football coach Mike Hodges.
After a redshirt freshman season in football, Clark began to wonder what it would be like to play baseball. Although he enjoyed playing football, he felt that his role as a wide receiver on a run-oriented team had limited his athletic abilities.
"I wasn't satisfied, I needed something else," said Clark. "I wanted to prove to myself that I could be the athlete that I thought I could be."
Clark looked to his family and then to Hodges for advice, who gave his approval.
"If somebody has the opportunity to help another program here, it's fine as far as I'm concerned," said Hodges. "My policy was to allow kids to compete in other sports as long as they were making a contribution, and Doug certainly did that."
Stone will always remember the day that Clark walked into his office and told him that he wanted to try out for the team. "Where did you play in high school?" asked Stone.
"Well sir, actually I didn't play in high school," said Clark, who chose to play tennis in the spring over baseball. "I haven't really played on a school team since seventh grade."
"Say what?" asked Stone.
Little did he know that a future All-American and major-league draft pick was standing in front of him. Still, Stone can recognize a talented athlete when he sees one.
"There have been a lot of people who have come in and said that they wanted to try out," said Stone. "But Doug just had the look of a player."
Stone recognized that Clark's athletic ability and raw skills translated into potential, so he gave him a spot on the team as a reserve. In addition, Stone, who played football at UMass once his minor league baseball career was over, had developed a fondness for dual-sport athletes.
"Knowing that we've had people in the past who have played football and baseball and have been pretty good players for us, there was no question that we'd give him a shot," said Stone.
Stone was equally impressed a few years earlier, when a strong-armed sophomore named Ron Villone had the tryout of a lifetime. Stone had heard of Villone coming out of high school but knew that he had committed to the football team. Still, Stone recognized that he had a potential player, and did some on-campus recruiting.
"I went down to the weight room one time to talk to him, and he said he wasn't going to play baseball because he needed to play spring football, " said Stone. "But then I went down there again the second year and basically recruited him out of the weight room to try out."
Villone showed up at baseball practice and let his ninety-plus-mile-an-hour fastball speak for itself.
"I saw him throw one time, and I could tell that there was something special in that arm," said Stone. "The ball just jumped out of his hands."
Like his major-league-caliber fastballs, Villone's career was going somewhere fast. The 6-3 lefthander came out of the bullpen as a sophomore, going 4-3 with a 4.28 ERA and four saves. He was named first team All-Atlantic 10, and was selected as the Atlantic 10 Left-handed Pitcher of the Year. Villone was not drafted after his sophomore season, partly he says, because of a misunderstanding about his age. The following season set him on a track to stardom, as he went 7-3 with a 3.34 ERA, pitching in front of a flock of scouts each time he took the mound. In 59 1/3 innings, he struck out 89 batters and held opponents to a .153 average. He was named first team All-Atlantic 10 and Atlantic 10 Left-handed Pitcher of the Year for the second consecutive year. He solidified himself as a major league prospect when he struck out 17 Central Florida batters in front of a large gathering of scouts, and held top prospect Chad Mottola hitless in five at bats.
In June of 1992, the Seattle Mariners made the UMass junior the 14th pick in the first round of the amateur draft. Following the draft, Olympic coach Ron Fraser offered Villone a spot on the U.S. team that would compete at the summer Olympics in Barcelona. Villone went 1-1 during the Games, while team USA finished a disappointing fourth place, losing the bronze medal game to Cuba. He finished the 38 game summer tour with a 3-1 record and 4.10 ERA, striking out 27 batters in 26 1/3 innings.
As a freshman, Clark rewarded Stone for giving him a shot, hitting .313 with two home runs and 40 RBIs, earning second team All-Atlantic 10 honors. He became the starting center fielder as a sophomore in 1997 and led UMass with a .415 batting average, to go with 11 home runs and 60 RBIs. He was named first team All-Atlantic 10 and third team All-America and drew considerable interest from a number of major league teams. That summer, he was drafted in the 20th round by the Milwaukee Brewers but decided to return to UMass to pursue his degree in biology and to continue his collegiate athletic career.
"Coming back was more important than any amount of money a baseball team could give me," said Clark.
By that time, Stone knew he had something special. "By the second year, you could look at Doug and say `This guy is gonna be a major leaguer,' " said Stone. "That doesn't happen too often."
The following year Doug hit .369 with eight home runs and 37 RBIs, earning third team All-America honors for the second straight year. In June of 1998, the San Francisco Giants selected him in the seventh round of the amateur baseball draft.
Clark went straight to the Salem-Keizer Volcanoes, a short-season Single A club in the Northwest League and was named the Giant's Minor League Player of the Month in July of 1998. He began the following season with the Single A Bakersfield Blaze of the California League, where he finished in the top five in the league in batting average and earned a promotion to Double A Shreveport for the final month of the season.
Now entering his third professional season, Clark is rated the Giants' sixth best prospect by Baseball America and The Sporting News. He has been so impressive that the Giants invited him to spring training as a non-roster player. Though he was assigned to minor league camp before the start of the regular season, he showed promise by hitting a home run in his first spring training at bat. Where Doug will begin the season is still undecided.
"I don't want to say that I don't see myself in Fresno (AAA) or even San Francisco," says Clark. "Shreveport (AA) would be great, Fresno would be even better. Wherever the chips fall, I'll go there."
Meanwhile, Villone hopes to duplicate the success he had in 1999. After a nomadic first four seasons, which included stints with four different teams, Villone found a home in the Cincinnati Reds' starting rotation. He went 9-7 with a 4.23 ERA and was a major factor in Cincinnati's late-season playoff run. As a result, the Reds rewarded him with a one-year contract. "It was a great opportunity for me," he said. "It's the first time I've had sort of a standing within an organization."
A reliever for his entire major league career, Villone welcomed the Red's decision to make him a starter.
"I can attribute my success to getting the opportunity to play," said Villone. "As a reliever, I would pitch two or three days in a row and than sit for two weeks. I'm the kind of guy who needs to work a lot more. Getting out there every fifth day, I was more comfortable and able to develop a routine, which really helped me a lot."
Villone hopes that his success will become a yearly routine, and that this year's Reds have what it takes to go all the way.
"We have the core of our guys coming back, and we think we're gonna be right in the running come September."
So have you found an answer to the question? If Clark and Villone had chosen to pursue gridiron glory, would this article have been about two professional football players instead? Would it have detailed how two former Minutemen are connecting for touchdowns in the NFL? The answer will always remain a mystery, only to be revealed in games like "What if?" Thanks for playing.