Blue Springs grad Darius Clark makes name for himself in ‘SlamBall’ league’s return

Darius Clark realized he had a special talent in the most unexpected way: through a dare.

Clark and some Blue Springs High track and field teammates were hanging out after practice one day when one of them suggested Clark couldn’t jump over a 65-inch iron gate on campus.

Clark disagreed, assuring his teammates he could. And then he put his money where his mouth was, clearing the gate with ease.

He posted video of his leap on social media and it went viral, garnering more than 20,000 views. That prompted Clark to make more videos.

Years later, and now the Guinness record-holder for highest vertical leap with a running start, Clark is capturing attention again.

Clark, 25, is currently leading his undefeated SlamBall team, known as MOB, in points per game. And he recently made the All-SlamBall Week 1 team.

“It was kind of like a domino effect,” Clark said. “The numbers kept on going up, and that’s exactly how I got to where I am today.”

SlamBall, a contact sport that combines basketball, football and trampolines, returned to the American sports scene this year after an absence since 2008.

Clark watched the sport occasionally growing up but never expected it to become his profession. Instead, his focus was on track and competing in the Olympics.

At Blue Springs, Clark was an all-state athlete who ranked No. 17 in the nation in the long jump (he graduated in 2017). Raised around athletes, Clark said that he thought dunking at age 15 was normal.

Clark received a scholarship offer from Nebraska but was unable to attend due to his grades. So he took the junior-college route and attended Coffeyville (Kansas) Community College for two years.

“I honestly don’t believe I’d be where I’m at if I didn’t go to (a two-year college),” he said. “It’s full of great athletes. And you know, competing with great athletes every day, that can only benefit you.”

Clark made a name for himself at the college in rural Kansas. In his freshman year, he won the 2018 NJCAA national championship in the long jump. The next season he was a first-team All-America selection for both indoor and outdoor competition.

And he went viral there, too, kicking a ceiling in a residential hallway.

After Coffeyville, Clark moved on to Florida State. And he continued to find success in Tallahassee, earning second-team All-ACC honors upon conclusion of the indoor season. He was starting to take jumping more seriously, all the while growing his social-media profile.

After the 2020 season, Clark transferred to Texas A&M and was once against named all-conference (second team). But after a few months in College Station, Texas, he was thinking less about track and more about dunking.

He posted more videos of his slams, leading to invitations to take part in various dunk competitions. This included one held by Whistle Sports in North Carolina — the event that would introduce him to SlamBall.

“That’s when I had started turning my attention to other opportunities other than track,” Clark said. “The Whistle Sports was definitely the biggest event, not only because of what came of it, but just because of what it was in general. That was like a dunk league of itself.”

In early February, Clark unexpectedly received two text messages from one of the judges from the Whistle Sports event: Do you know about SlamBall? and Do you want to be a part of the return?

Clark wasn’t too familiar with the league at the time, as it started and left the U.S. when he was still quite young. But after researching SlamBall’s history, his interest was piqued.

Clark didn’t give the judge an answer right away. He worried that putting another opportunity on his plate could interfere with the time he’s devote to training Washington Wizards guard Kendrick Nunn for five weeks in Miami. Clark, who has his own training service and app called JAXD, said training Nunn felt like the more solid path.

The judge eventually sold Clark on SlamBall by breaking down the money he’d earn. Still, Clark said he wasn’t sure if he was going to go until a week before his flight.

“The financial reasons were the tipping point in persuading me to come to Vegas for SlamBall,” Clark said. “I’m looking to start my own gym equipment business, and you know, I need a certain amount (of money), and … they’re paying the perfect amount for me to save up to be able to start this company.”

At tryouts, Clark left zero crumbs on the table in dominating the competition. MOB head coach Brendan Kirsch, who has led the team since 2003, didn’t know about Clark’s world record until after tryouts.

But seeing Clark play a few times and having multiple conversations with him, Kirsch said he knew that Clark would fit the system he was looking to build — and how much talent he had on the court.

These traits were prominent even before Kirsch and the MOB drafted Clark. Kirsch said that during the Super 24 Camp’s first full-contact drill, Clark took over, dunking from many spots on the court.

“You could tell right away on the court, it’s like, this guy’s a gamer,” Kirsch said. “Like when the lights come on, he wants to play and he wants to attack.

“When you have his innate ability to get up and his vertical, and then you match that with his absolute fearlessness of being in the air, I think that is what separates him from everybody else.”

Kirsch said MOB is hard to beat when Clark is on the floor. Without him, games are a lot closer. Teammate Cameron Horton, the league’s leader in assists, emphasized Clark’s importance, saying he can jump higher than anyone else in the country.

But talent and sheer athleticism aren’t the only impressive aspects of Clark’s game. Horton was also taken by Clark’s strong mindset.

During one of the team’s first practices, which included a full-contact scrimmage against fellow SlamBall squad Buzzsaw, things became heated. Noticing that Horton was involved, Clark advised his teammate to maintain his poise.

“When you get emotional, you lose,” Clark said.

Horton agreed, and by the end of the scrimmage MOB had beaten Buzzsaw by about 25 points.

“He sticks to his routine (and he) doesn’t let anybody push him off his pivot,” Horton said of Clark. “He’s going to do what he came to do.

“He’s looking out for his teammates, he’s playing hard on defense and that’s why he’s a good player: because he’s doing all the little things.”

Clark’s presence was felt across SlamBall. He led the league in slam-dunks (27), ranked second in points (83) and tied for first in hits (six). He scored at least 20 points in three of MOB’s first four games, helping lead his team to a 4-0 start.

A few weeks later, Clark suffered a sternum injury that sidelined him for three games. But he returned to the floor Thursday and scored 27 total points in MOB’s next two games. And he followed that up by dunking on his defenders Saturday.

MOB remains undefeated at 12-0.

Clark’s new goal is to win consecutive SlamBall titles — he likes the sound of back-to-back championships.

Individually, he’s aiming to lead the league in points, hits and dunks.

“It’s not easy to run down the court, lay the hit and run down the other side of the court and score,” he said. “Being number one in the league just shows how serious I take this sport and how much effort I put into this.”