The people of Youngstown, Ohio called it "Black Monday."
On September 19, 1977, Youngstown State Sheet & Tube announced portions of the company's Youngstown steel operations would be shut down, putting nearly 4,000 people out of work in the Mahoning Valley.
In the ensuing recession, Youngstown would lose five steel mills and nearly 25,000 jobs.
Penn State backup quarterback Daryll Clark wouldn't be born until the 1980s, but the effects of Black Monday would carry through his lifetime.
In 2004, just the time Clark would be graduating from Ursuline High School, the 11th Annual Morgan Quitno Awards, which reward America's safest cities and rate the most dangerous, ranked Youngstown the seventh most dangerous city of its size (75,000 to 99,000) in the nation. And that was after a Youngstown boasted the fourth most improved crime rate in the nation's 100 largest cities.
Some of the city's nicknames even include Crimetown, USA; Murdertown, USA and Struggle City.
"Youngstown is urban ... not really nice," Clark said.
But Clark said the area's improving. In 2006, the Mahoning Valley Thunder, an arena football team, moved into Youngstown. A year before that, the Youngstown Steelhounds, a professional hockey club, moved in.
"There's some good things we're trying to do," Clark said of his hometown. "We were a little shaky as I grew up. But things are starting to look on the up and up."
Carolyn Korenic, 37, has lived in Youngstown her entire life and works as the director of alumni and development at Ursuline. She remembers Clark as the starting quarterback of the Fighting Irish football team. A Penn State fan, she still roots for Clark, though she said she would be rooting Youngstown State when it plays Penn State today (She's a 1990 YSU grad).
When she heard that Clark mentioned the improvements around Youngstown, she agreed.
"With the demise of the steel industry in American, Youngstown has gone through many metamorphoses, you could say," Korenic said.
The latest change, she said, shows signs of promise.
In 2002, the people of Youngstown launched Youngstown 2010, an ambitious urban renewal project designed to improve the area's economics, neighborhoods and school systems.
The city of Youngstown is essentially undergoing a renaissance.
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On a personal level, Clark has gone through his own renaissance.
By Clark's own words, "it's been a long, long journey," from Youngstown to Penn State, where the redshirt freshman is now the No. 1 option behind starting quarterback Anthony Morelli.
But though that journey may be over, Clark will be reminded of it this week when the Youngstown State Penguins travel to State College today to take on the No. 25 Nittany Lions.
While backup quarterbacks rarely deal with media attention, Clark was peppered with questions about his past this week, since he is the Lions' lone connection to the town of Youngstown.
After struggling with academics in high school, Clark had to spend nine months at The Kiski School, a prep school in Saltsburg, Pa., before he could even enroll at Penn State for the fall 2005 semester. With his grades an issue, many colleges shied from offering him a football scholarship.
"A lot of schools dropped off 'cause of my grades," he said. "I really didn't get very good marks in school. And because of that, I had to pay."
At one point, Clark remembers wondering if anything would go right.
Once on campus, his struggles didn't end. An issue with the NCAA Clearinghouse forced Clark off the practice field before the Oct. 8 game against Ohio State. Clark couldn't practice with the team the rest of the season and was held out of spring drills.
Clark wouldn't talk about the issue in detail, calling it a "big mishap."
"It was all unfortunate, and it hurt me for a while," he said. "At first, I didn't want to come to practice. I guess you could say I was ashamed of what happened."
But Clark has learned from his problems off the field.
"I took a huge turn into how serious school has become for me," he said, "and because of that, I've been doing very well up here at school at Penn State."
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While Clark dealt with his problems, he remembers two people who kept his spirits up.
One was his father. The other was a Penn State quarterbacks coach Jay Paterno.
Every once in a while, Paterno would call Clark just to see how he was doing. The gesture from the Penn State staff impressed Clark.
"When they're interested in you, they make you know that they're interested in you," Clark said. "They don't just talk Xs and Os. That means something to me."
While Penn State obviously shared other school's concerns about Clark's grades, the Nittany Lion staff was willing to get to know Clark as more than just an SAT score.
"When they met me as a person, they came to the conclusion that my grades didn't show the type of person I was," Clark said.
The Penn State players also showed their support. Because Clark couldn't travel with the team to the Orange Bowl in January, cornerback Knowledge Timmons bought him a plane ticket to Florida.
"That goes to show you how much love they have for me," Clark said.
Teammates did everything they could to make him feel like part of the team, even though he couldn't run out the tunnel with them on Saturdays.
"We just tried to bring him around," sophomore cornerback Justin King said. "He was always with us, no matter what."
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When Clark finally resolved all his problems, he hit the field ready to work.
At the start of this season, Clark was listed at No. 4 on the depth chart at quarterback. Ahead of him were starter Anthony Morelli, and backups Kevin Suhey and Paul Cianciolo.
Paterno explained to Clark he had to start at the bottom because of his absence from spring practice.
"We want you to show us what you can do," Clark remembers Paterno telling him. "You've got to prove to us that we can put you at No. 2."
So, Clark endured the practices and the scrimmages working as the third understudy. Eventually, Paterno began pulling him aside so he could watch Morelli direct the first-team offense. A week before the season started, Paterno told Clark he'd be working with the second team.
Clark saw limited time in an opening season win against Akron, and then played much of the fourth quarter in last Saturday's loss to Notre Dame.
In that game, Clark ran for a 28 yards and a touchdown and passed for another 36.
As Clark boarded the bus for the airport, he checked his cell phone for messages. He had 18 missed calls and 10 voicemails, he said, all offering congratulations for his first collegiate touchdown.
"I was really excited," Clark said. "What put a damper on it was when I looked at the scoreboard and realized this touchdown doesn't mean anything."
Against Youngstown, Clark should have the chance to score some more meaningful touchdowns. Penn State is expected to blowout the Penguins. That means Clark will most likely relieve Morelli sometime in the third quarter.
But that doesn't mean Clark is overlooking Youngstown State. Growing up in the Mahoning Valley, he knows how important football is to that area of the state, where the Penguins have won four I-AA national titles.
"We're not taking this team light at all," Clark said. "They're a good Division I-AA team."
Youngstown State coach Jon Heacock recruited Clark out of high school. With ties to the city, Heacock couldn't resist giving Clark a shot.
"I don't know how much golf you play, but you could probably hit a driver to his high school [from Youngstown State]," Heacock said. "But obviously a choice between Penn State and Youngstown State -- Penn State's going to win that battle every time."
While Clark never suited up for the Penguins, he has played at their stadium. Ursuline didn't have a stadium of its own. Instead, Clark's high school team played in Youngstown State's Stambaugh Stadium, two blocks from his high school.
Clark has other Penguin ties, too.
He played high school ball with the Youngstown State tight end, Louis Irizarry. And he faced off against the Penguin's starting quarterback Tom Zetts, who played for a rival high school.
"He happened to win every time we met," Clark said. "But it was always a close game."
Clark said he's trying to promote the game as much as he can in Youngstown. He hopes to get a good crowd to make the 170-mile trip from just across the Pennsylvania-Ohio border to Centre County.
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Clark understands that this year -- and probably the next -- belongs to Morelli.
For now, at least, Clark said he's happy just to learn from Morelli. His goal isn't to be this year's starter. Rather, he wants the Penn State coaches to be comfortable enough to put him on the field if Morelli went down with an injury.
So far, Morelli has provided a veteran presence for Clark, breaking down video with him and offering advice.
"I just try to help him out, just like [former Penn State quarterback] Mike [Robinson] did for me last year," Morelli said. "Kind of like another quarterback coach, just pull him aside and tell him what he did right or wrong."
Clark said he doesn't understand why members of the media are calling for him to replace Morelli.
In fact, he even went as far as to say one editorial was unfair to discredit Morelli already. To Clark, there is no quarterback controversy.
"Me and Anthony Morelli are going to be pretty good friends," Clark said. "I just hope that by the end of this season, I have everything down pat, so if next year comes and they give me the call, I'll be ready."
Morelli and Clark are two different breeds of quarterback. While Morelli is a conventional dropback quarterback with a right arm that's hailed as the strongest in Penn State history, Clark more resembles Robinson, a scrambling quarterback.
But when it comes to classifying himself, Clark isn't so sure what he is.
"I wouldn't classify myself as a dropback guy, and that's something I'm really working on most," Clark said. "I always want to make the touchdown pass rather than the touchdown run ... I classify myself as an Anthony Robinson, if you will."
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Even though he's just a redshirt freshman, Clark has already dealt with his share of adversity.
He's taken a tough road to Happy Valley, through the depressed city of Youngstown and the difficulties of academia. But somehow, he's kept his perspective.
Clark could have brushed off going to prep school. He could have called it quits after off-the-field issues kept him out of practice for nearly a year. He could have been bitter.
Instead, he learned from it.
"It's nice because Daryll's a good guy," King said.
In a way, Clark's renaissance is complete, the Daryl Clarke 2006 project a success. He's had the patience and the right attitude to make positive changes in his life. It's something that's easily related to the people still living in Youngstown.
After all Youngstown has been though since Black Monday, Korenic said people are ready for a change.
"We've probably been more impatient because people believe in the town. We're a blue collar town," Korenic said. "They want to believe in the town and the rebirth."
And by Korenic's account, Youngstown 2010 is a great place to start believing. But people will need to be patient, just as Clark has been in his young football career.
"The ones who are patient are the ones who benefit," Clark said.
