Terrence Clarke will always be a cautionary tale to younger players in the coming years. The 19-year-old had everything he wanted coming to him after he declared for the NBA Draft and signed with Klutch Sports, only to have it all taken away with his life after a brutal car accident.
Clarke, a freshman guard for the Kentucky Wildcats men’s basketball team this past season, died following a car accident in the Los Angeles area on Thursday.
Sgt. John Matassa with the Los Angeles Police Department’s Valley Traffic Division told Kentucky.com that Clarke was traveling at 80 mph in a 45-mph zone and not wearing his seatbelt. Upon entering an intersection, his car clipped a truck that was making a left turn and slammed into a pole and then a block wall.
He was pronounced dead at the hospital.
Clarke did not play in very many games during his freshman year at Kentucky, but he did average 10 points and three rebounds in his first seven games before missing 17 games due to a foot injury.
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“I am absolutely gutted and sick tonight,” Kentucky head coach John Calipari said in a statement from the school. “A young person who we all love has just lost his life too soon, one with all of his dreams and hopes ahead of him. Terrence Clarke was a beautiful kid, someone who owned the room with his personality, smile and joy. People gravitated to him, and to hear we have lost him is just hard for all of us to comprehend right now. We are all in shock.”
“Words just can’t explain, man,” teammate Isaiah Jackson wrote on Instagram.
