LAS VEGAS (KLAS) — Charlie Clark, 19, stood out physically amongst his peers with a 6’6’’ frame, but his swimming coach said it was Clark’s personality and work ethic that won over his team.
Clark and his two teammates – Carson Muir, 18, and Luke Slabber, 21 – from the University of Wyoming swimming and diving team were killed in a crash Thursday along U.S. 287 south of the Wyoming-Colorado border. Two other team members were also injured.
A Toyota RAV4 with five people inside swerved and went off the pavement, according to a patrol statement gathered by the Associated Press.
“We are all trying to come to terms with the sudden loss of Charlie,” Mike Polk, the Boulder City Henderson Heatwave Swim Team head coach, said. “Charlie could always be counted on to get after it in practice as well as competition.”
Clark swam for the Heatwave swim team while he was a Silverado High School student. After graduation, he went on to attend the University of Wyoming. As a sophomore, he studied psychology and competed on the university swimming and diving team.
Charlie credited much of his development from a rambunctious, slightly hard-to-contain age-group swimmer into a serious senior-level athlete to BCH Heatwave and Green Valley High School Coach Bob Swift, who passed away in December, according to Polk.
“Thanks to Bob’s belief in him and Charlie’s own work, I inherited into my group a young man that I was extremely proud to have had in my life and as part of my team,” Polk explained.
