Defensive end Frank Clark, who was Seattle’s first pick in the 2015 draft, knows he’ll have to win over plenty of Seahawk fans thanks to a past that includes a recent domestic violence arrest—he later pleaded guilty to a lesser charge.
On a conference call with Seattle area reporters, Clark was asked repeatedly about his November arrest, and while he didn’t go into details about what happened, he did acknowledge that he has work to do to prove himself to his new team and its fans, but says he won’t let people down.
“Like I tell everybody, you get to know me, Frank’s not an angry guy, the only time he’s angry is on the field,” Clark said. “… All the fans, I just want everyone to have faith in me. Give me a couple of years and believe in me, and I promise you, I’m saying it right now, I promise they won’t be upset.”
Clark said that in his conversations with the Seahawks prior to the draft, “they questioned me about the incident just like everyone else did. That was just for the simple fact that when you’re picking a player as high as they took me, you want to know every single detail from the moment the person started walked to the point where I am now, and I respect that.”
Asked what he told the Seahawks, Clark said, “I just simply kept it real with them. The one thing I don’t do, I don’t pride myself in lying. I tell the truth, because once you lie that one time, it’s followed by a lie, followed by another lie. I told the coaching staff, I told the owner, I told the GM, I told everyone who questioned me about it, I gave them honest and upfront answers from the beginning.”
Asked directly what happened when he was arrested, Clark responded, “I simply put myself in a position that I shouldn’t have been in. There’s no better way to say it; I shouldn’t have been in the situation in the first place. I’m a grown man, I take full responsibility for everything that happened, I take full responsibility for my past, my freshman year with the laptop. It was just something I have to learn from and get better from and grow from individually. That’s all I can do from now on. I can’t go back and change the hands of time; I can only get better with my future from this point.”
Asked if he was in the wrong and sorry for what happened, Clark answered, “I believe I was wrong, and I am sorry, and the main reason why I am is because I put myself in a position where I shouldn’t have been. I’m not saying I did anything wrong as far as putting my hands on a woman, because the case played out how it did, I’m sure it reflected that, but I am sorry and I do apologize to everyone who it may have affected… I don’t believe no woman should ever, ever have to go through anything like it, anything domestic.”
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