Hazel Clark’s demeanor couldn’t be more different off the court than it is on the court.

During Monday morning’s practice at Northeast Lauderdale High School, the first-year Lady Trojans basketball coach was all business, instructing her players and giving corrections when she saw something she didn’t like. There was plenty of tough love to go around while practice was in session.

Afterward, though, Clark was almost a different person: calm, laid back with plenty of laughs to give. The contrast was stark, but Clark said the important thing is her players know she cares about them off the court while wanting to make them better on the court.

“The girls know I always have this saying, that between the lines, I don’t have any feelings one way or the other,” Clark said. “It’s business, unless it’s a 911 (situation). I’m the coach, you’re the athlete, that’s all I want to see. I tell them all the time, you know if I’m not worried about my daughter’s feelings, I’m not worried about your feelings. It’s all business, because if I can’t get you to that next level, I’m short-changing you and not doing my job — but off the court, the girls know that I love them to death.”

The approach is one Clark said she’s hoping will lead to big things for the Lady Trojans’ program. As coach of the Northeast Lauderdale system’s seventh- through 12th-graders, Clark has taken on a big responsibility — especially since her daughter, freshman center Jaletha Clark, is a member of the team. As her daughter, Jaletha Clark said she’s noticed her mother’s almost split personality first-hand, but she understands why that’s the approach the elder Clark has taken.

“On the court, it’s her being Coach Clark,” Jaletha Clark said. “She has to do what she has to do to get us ready. Off the court, she can be goofy or having fun with us if she wants to, but on the court, she doesn’t care about people’s feelings, because she wants to get the job done.”

A 1990 graduate of Northeast Lauderdale High School, the former Hazel Temple was one of seven in her family to come through the school. She was coach by the late Willie Perry her first three years of high school and by Dan Stegall, who is now at Northeast Lauderdale Middle School, in her senior season. It was her senior year Hazel Clark discovered she wanted to be a coach.

“It was just a passion of mine,” Hazel Clark said. “It always has been. I always knew I wanted to teach, but in my senior year with Coach Stegall, it just came naturally.”

After coaching at Northwest Middle School for several years, Hazel Clark said she stepped away from coaching while her daughter was in seventh and eighth grade but nonetheless followed the Lady Trojans in recent seasons.

“The whole time I always watched these girls play, because I saw them in middle school,” Hazel Clark said. “When they moved up, I said, ‘Dang, if I could just get to Northeast and be a part of that team.’ All I wanted to do was get home and be a part of that team, because I knew they had something good coming up.”

At first, former Lady Trojans coach Frederick Liddell expressed interest in getting Hazel Clark on his staff as an assistant. After Liddell left Northeast Lauderdale to become the assistant girls coach at Meridian High School, Hazel Clark interviewed for the job and got it. It made her the first black female coach of the girls basketball team in school history, something which she doesn’t take lightly.

“It being (Martin Luther King) holiday, things are happening, and things have changed,” Hazel Clark said. “We still have our setbacks here and there — and I think that’s for anybody; it doesn’t even have anything to do with race. I think that’s just life. For me, being a female coach, I think that’s something that’s up-and-coming. We’re getting the recognition we once didn’t have as coaches.”

Hazel Clark also said she realizes the job is a gift from God first and foremost.

“I am where I am because God placed me here,” she said. 

Being a woman coach gives her mother at least one advantage, Jaletha Clark said.

“I find it a lot easier to have a female coach, because they relate to things we do when they were our age,” Jaletha Clark said. 

One of the things for which Hazel Clark said she’s most grateful is how welcoming everyone has been since she took over the Lady Trojans’ program.

“I didn’t have to get used to anything; everything fell into place,” Hazel Clark said. “(Boys) coach (Lewis) Lightsey had coached several of my cousins that came in after me when my sister was here, so everything was natural. It didn’t feel like I had to fit in.”

A big balancing act, other than her different demeanors, is Hazel Clark’s role of a mother and coach to Jaletha Clark. She approaches coaching her child by not treating her any differently than her other players, she said, but also by making sure the “Coach Clark” persona doesn’t come home with them once basketball is done for the day.

“We’ll have discussions, but I try to leave the coach part out of it and have the discussion from the mom’s side,” Hazel Clark explained. “On the court, when I’m on her butt, it’s about business, just like the rest of the team. I always tell my girls, when I stop fussing and talking to you, that’s when you’d better get worried.”

Jaletha Clark said watching her mother work may be sparking an interest in one day becoming a coach herself.

“It’s fun and also a learning process, because if I want to, I can go to college and be a coach just like my mom, and I can pick up the stuff she did when she coached me,” Jaletha Clark said.

The Lady Trojans (6-6, 1-1) will host Newton County High School Tuesday.