Clark was an all-state linebacker at Twin River Valley and his brother, Derrik, played at Iowa State as a linebacker. The thought of moving to the other side of the ball wasn’t even on Clark’s radar.

What Clark wound up doing in seasons at tight end with the Hawkeyes earned him a spot on the All-American team, in professional football, and this week, the University of Iowa Athletics Department Hall of Fame.

Clark will be enshrined on Sept. 2.

“There were a circle of emotions that came with this news,” Clark said. “It’s easy to reflect on that football journey from my time in Iowa City forward.

Submitted photo: Dallas Clark with his mother, Jan, before a Twin River Valley High School football game in the late-1990s.

“Never in my wildest dreams did I think this would happen.”

None of it would have happened if Clark didn’t make the switch from defense to offense.

“I thought Coach (Ferentz) had lost his mind,” Clark said in an exclusive interview with The Messenger. “I came to the University of Iowa with a purpose. My brother was a linebacker at Iowa State, and we were taught and that’s what I do and what we do.”

Clark said Ferentz planted the seed during his second year, in 2000, and had to be talked into it.

“Coach talked to (then-defensive standout LaVar Woods. He talked to me and I was like, ‘no, no, no,”’ Clark said. “I was rooming with Kyle McCann at the time. Kyle and I were good friends. Coach also called my dad. Kyle and my dad were trying to convince me.”

Dan Clark, another older brother, was a quarterback, so Dallas was used to shagging balls and running routes.

“I would go out and play catch with Dan and Kyle,” Clark said. “Coach Ferentz saw that and said I had that ‘Marv Cook’ look about me.”

Clark still wasn’t having it. He came to Kinnick Stadium to hit the opposition.

“I liked tackling people,” Clark said. “Before spring ball, Coach put the full-court press on. He had another sit-down with me in his office.

“I remember in that spring practice screwing up a lot, but then I scored a touchdown in the spring game.”

The rest, as they say, was history. Clark had a legendary career with the Hawkeyes, followed by an 11-year NFL career with the Indianapolis Colts and Tampa Bay Buccaneers.

“I remember when it all really first clicked,” Clark said. “Kyle and I were playing catch and I took the gloves off in 100-degree weather. I was catching it with my bare hands and it was like velcro. I thought, ‘oh my, this is the easiest thing in the world.’

“I was like, ‘Coach might know what he’s doing.'”

Clark, a Twin River Valley graduate and native of Livermore, played for the Hawkeyes from 1999 to 2002 before foregoing his senior year to enter the NFL Draft.

“I wouldn’t have come close to what I did without my teammates,” Clark said. “When I switched to tight end, it was like finding a treasure and unveiling it. It came so naturally to me and it was so much fun.

“It was great just having that whole last season in the Big Ten (when Iowa won the Big Ten championship in 2002).”

In his two years at tight end for Iowa, Clark caught 81 balls for 1,281 yards and eight touchdowns. He played his first game for the Hawkeyes in 2000 on special teams, and made six tackles at linebacker before making the move heading into 2001.

“Being inducted into the Hall of Fame makes me look back and reflect on my time with coach Ferentz, Bret Bielema, Norm Parker and Chris Doyle,” Clark said. “Coach Bielema was a phenomenal guy and got me fired up every day.

“Doyle was a machine. He created an environment for us where we put our nose to the grindstone and got after it.”

Clark had a unique start to his career. He began his football life in 1998 as a part-time student with a broken collarbone. Clark became a full-time student and a full-fledged team member in January of 1999. But two days before the season opener against Nebraska — Ferentz’s first game — Clark had an emergency appendectomy.

Clark earned a full scholarship in the fall of 2001. Up until that point, he held a summer job with the Iowa grounds services, which included mowing Kinnick Stadium.

In the 2002 season, Clark was named a consensus first-team All-American, first team All-Big Ten, and John Mackey Award recipient. He was selected by Indianapolis with the 24th pick of the first round in the 2003 NFL Draft.

While looking back on his career, Clark remembers the incomparable Hawkeye culture.

“You’re successful because you are surrounded by people that love to help kids and athletes compete,” Clark said. “Everything happened because of the University’s system: everyone on the support staff, from the equipment guy to everyone else.”

In the NFL, Clark was an All-Pro selection in 2009. He appeared in two Super Bowls, including the Colts’ victory over Chicago for the championship in 2007.

Clark had 505 catches, 5,665 yards and 53 touchdowns in his 11-year NFL career.

Today, Clark is an organic farmer back in his home area. He has also picked up a new passion: competing in triathlons.

Clark competed in a half ironman in April. Now he is training for the Kona Ironman Championship in Hawaii this October.

Clark is trying to raise money for the University of Iowa Stead Family Children’s Hospital, and Peyton Manning’s Children’s Hospital in Indianapolis. The website is https://ironmanfoundation.donordrive.com/