Quotes from University of Miami Head Basketball Coach Perry Clark

July 6, 2000

Coral Gables, FLA –

“First of all I want to say how excited I am to be here at the University of Miami. I came here because of the things Miami has to offer and the opportunity that it presents. The success that it’s had in the past few years has put it in position to go to even further heights in the BIG EAST conference — you’ve got the Ryder Center, the enthusiasm in this community for basketball and certainly the players who are already in this program.

“I would also like to take an opportunity to thank Dwight Freeman for the great job that he’s done in keeping this ship going in a direction in this void. He’s made my job a lot easier coming in. As I met with the players earlier today, their enthusiasm, coming off of last year’s success and doing the hard work that their doing right now, certainly puts us in a position to continue in the same direction that this program has been going in.

“I’m extremely happy and pleased to be here. I had a tremendous tenure at Tulane, a program that I had started, and it was a hard and very difficult thing for me to leave. It was like a child that I had raised and it took a very, very special situation for me to do that. I think Miami presents that. It is a school that fosters and believes in the student-athlete. It is a small private school – a lot like Tulane. There are a lot of similarities that really cause me to like this situation and feel like it was an exellent match for Perry Clark. I am certainly excited and looking forward to the challenge.”