COLLINSVILLE — Brandon Clark coach the Northeast Lauderdale Middle School for two years before an opening on his father’s staff sent him back to West Lauderdale High School.

Clark, who graduated from West Lauderdale in 2010, played for his father, Duran Clark, on the Knights’ basketball team during his high school days. Now, Clark can be seen next to his father any time a West Lauderdale basketball game is in progress.

“There were a couple of changes made (at Northeast Middle), and he was able to come over here and work,” Duran Clark explained.

Since Brandon Clark was already a regular on the Knights’ sideline helping his father, however, Duran Clark said not much has changed even with the move.

“The only difference now is that he’s getting paid to do it,” Duran Clark said.

Brandon Clark’s coaching abilities were evident from a young age, his father said. Duran Clark described coaching his son when he was in the fifth grade, and when Duran Clark was forced to handle a problem in the locker room, Brandon Clark made sure to get the right five players on the court to help his father.

“When I got back on the court, I asked the guys how they knew who to start during the second half, and they said Brandon put them in,” Duran Clark said.

Brandon Clark said there wasn’t much to the strategy other than knowing the groupings.

“I was always around, so I knew what was going on,” Brandon Clark said. “When I’m around, I knew these five were in the game, so I told them to get in the game and run a play.”

That’s not the only story of Brandon Clark’s early coaching acumen, Duran Clark said. When he was young, Duran Clark said his son would go into his room, take pencils and run basketball plays with them.

“My wife and I figured if he wanted to run basketball plays with pencils, we’d go buy him some army men,” Duran Clark said. “He threw those army men away and kept running the plays with pencils — and the bigger the pencils, the better the player.”

Incentive to not sharpen his pencils aside, Brandon Clark said the exercise had more to do with his love for basketball than anything else.

“If I couldn’t play it, I’d go in my room and come up with something to do,” Brandon Clark said. “Once you come in from playing outside, you’re bored.”

Brandon Clark’s two years at Northeast Middle were the start of his coaching career, and he said it was a good experience for him, especially when he got to go against his father, who was coaching the middle school team at West Lauderdale at the time.

“We always talked about maybe one day coaching against each other,” Brandon Clark said. “If I win, I get to brag, but if he wins, he gets to brag.”

Duran Clark, on the other hand, wasn’t too keen on coaching against his son, which is why he was happy to have him eventually join his staff at West Lauderdale.

“It was just a sigh of relief that I didn’t have to go against him anymore,” Duran Clark said. “One of us had to go home with a win, and the other had to go home with a loss.”

It also complicated things when the two teams would run the exact same plays, calling for some adjustments to the terminology.

“He would call 22 at Northeast and I would call 22 at West Lauderdale, so we had to come up with different names when we played each other, because it was going to be the same play by the same name,” Duran Clark said.

Said Brandon Clark, “When we’d practice, we’d say, ‘When we hear this, this is what they’re going to do.’ We didn’t really change anything, we just knew what was coming, so we’d always prepare for it.”

In being around his father, Brandon Clark said the most important lesson he’s taken away from the experience is remaining true to yourself.

“Always be yourself,” Brandon Clark said. “Don’t change, just do what you know how to do.”

The elder Clark said he’s learned a few things from his son, especially when it comes to in-game adjustments. In Tuesday night’s triple-overtime game against Noxubee County High School, Duran Clark said that skill was on display during a timeout.

“I was drawing up a play during overtime, and he just came up and showed me something really quick,” Duran Clark said. “We made that quick adjustment and got a basket.”

While he may not be around his father his entire coaching career, Brandon Clark said he’s like to make coaching a long-term habit.

“It’s a life thing (for me),” Brandon Clark said. “As long as I’m able to do it, I want to do it.”

For now, Duran Clark said he’s just happy to have his son with him on game nights.

“It’s been great,” Duran Clark said. “I’ve had some other assistant coaches that did a great job as well, but now I can go home and not have to call (my assistants), I just walk around the hall and mention to him what he thinks of this or what we’re going to do tomorrow in practice,” Duran Clark said. “It’s been an easy transition.”