CHARLOTTE -- Dwight Clark, best known for the 1982 winning touchdown reception against the Dallas Cowboys, took a trip down memory lane Friday morning.
“When I first came in that front door and walking around the campus a little bit, just so many great memories of being in high school here. I loved high school,” Clark said.
He graduated from Garinger High School in Charlotte in 1975.
“Everything I did here got me ready for all the things I was going to go through in my life.”
He went on to play football for Clemson University and then the San Francisco 49ers. He was on the two Super Bowl winning teams with the 49ers.
Now to celebrate this year's Super Bowl, the NFL launched a high school honor roll program. It highlights notable players and coaches and presents special golden footballs in their names to their alma mater.
For Garinger, it's Clark and Jim Richards.
Athletic Director Tony Huggins said, “It gives them a chance to see that someone from where I'm sitting at has made it to where, doing things I want to do. It shows them with hard work and dedication they can get there.”
Senior football player Jordan Freeman said, “It makes me want to do the same thing they did and help out in the community because I know Garinger's community is supposed to be like a low community, so I want to come back and help build the community up, make the football team good.”
And along with the footballs, Clark left this advice: “Talent is great. Talent will get you a long way, but it's more about effort. It's guy that's trying harder, the first guy in line, the first guy in the races, the guy that's given the most effort even at the end of the day. That can get you a little further than the talent can.”
Richards couldn't be there in person, but he joined in via Skype. He played for the New York Jets when they won the Super Bowl in the late 1960s.