advertisement

Clark's vision includes forgiveness

Clearly, Dyrell Clark doesn't believe in "an eye for an eye."

The former Lakes football and basketball star isn't even holding a grudge against the two kids who are the reason he must now wear a glass eye for the rest of his life.

"At first, I was mad at them. I mean, I had just lost my eye because of them," said Clark, a bruising running back who graduated from Lakes in 2013 as one of the most prolific rushers in school history. "But now when I see them, I'm their friend. I'm just a happy guy, and you can't be mad at someone forever. It was an accident, a freak accident."

Clark, just 20 years old and still trying to move full steam ahead with his football career at Winona State in Minnesota, was in the wrong place at the wrong time back in March when an errant pellet from a BB gun that was inadvertently fired struck him directly in his right eye.

He was hanging out with a couple of friends who were fooling around with the gun, wrestling with it. They seemingly were unaware that it was loaded.

"I remember telling them that I don't like guns," Clark said. "My mom never let me and my brothers play with them. I told them that I didn't want anything to do with it."

Suddenly, there was a pop and then Clark felt an excruciating pain in his right eye.

"I dropped to one knee," Clark said. "I was just looking around and everyone's face was white. They were like, 'Dyrell, Dyrell, you're bleeding from your eye."

Clark, who was on break from school and back in the area visiting friends and family, was rushed to Victory Hospital in Waukegan, then transferred to Condell in Libertyville and then transferred again to Lutheran General in Park Ridge.

He would need major surgery since the pellet was still lodged in his eye.

"It was an all-day surgery, but they got it out and they told me to keep a patch on it to see if it would heal on its own," Clark said. "I had to go to all these (follow-up) doctor appointments and each time they would check to see if I could see anything.

"I couldn't see anything.

"Every night, I'd pray that I could see something the next day. I never could. Not light, shadows, or anything."

So Clark's doctors eventually decided that it would be best for the eye to be removed. They told him that keeping it would ultimately put too much stress on his brain as well as his left eye as both tried to compensate for the complete loss of sight in his right eye.

"I started crying when they said that they were going to have to remove my eye. I was so worried and scared," said Clark, who had 20/20 vision in both eyes. "I couldn't imagine life without both eyes."

Yet, here Clark is, eight months later, managing just fine. With just one eye. The glass eye in his right eye matches his left eye and comes out only at night.

"Actually, I think there are a lot of people up here (at Winona State) who don't even know about my eye," Clark said. "Sometimes I even forget it's there. I don't make a big deal of it and I'm still doing all the things I used to do."

Clark still goes to school, he still plays pick-up basketball, and he still hangs out with his best buddies, teammates Andrew Spencer and Justin Bergeron, also former multi-sport standouts at Lakes.

And of course, the 6-foot-1, 235-pound Clark, who rushed for more than 3,000 yards and 40 touchdowns over his final two seasons at Lakes, still plays football.

After redshirting last year as a true freshman, he has slowly but surely made his way into the Warriors' rotation this fall. He's a second-string running back and has scored 3 touchdowns over five games. He's rushed for 122 yards on 27 carries with a long of 22 yards. He had 2 touchdowns in a win over Upper Iowa in October.

"I feel like my field vision has stayed the same somehow. I have no problem seeing the field," said Clark, who plays with his glass eye. "I move my head like it's on a swivel, I see things and I'm just doing the same stuff I've always been doing."

He's also impressing his friends, even more than usual.

They can't believe how well Clark is handling this. They marvel at his positive outlook.

"Andrew (Spencer) is my roommate and he's always like, 'Dyrell, I don't know how you do it,'" Clark said. "It hasn't always been like this. When it first happened, I was depressed. But I think the difference has been a lot of great friends and my family. Everyone just kept pushing me. They told me that it was going to be OK. They were there for me, and that just kind of kept me moving forward.

"Now, I'm doing fine. I'm really OK with it."

Clark even credits the friends who shot him in the eye with his remarkable recovery.

"My mom (Tabby) is always saying that I'm a lot stronger than I thought I was," Clark said. "That's part of the reason I can't be mad at those guys for shooting me in the eye. In a way, they made me a stronger person."

pbabcock@dailyherald.com

• Follow Patricia on Twitter: @babcockmcgraw

Dyrell Clark
Article Comments
Guidelines: Keep it civil and on topic; no profanity, vulgarity, slurs or personal attacks. People who harass others or joke about tragedies will be blocked. If a comment violates these standards or our terms of service, click the "flag" link in the lower-right corner of the comment box. To find our more, read our FAQ.