Ryan Clark pays emotional tribute to New Orleans terror attack victims with first-hand account, thanks police

Ryan Clark has served in a lot of roles. ESPN NFL analyst. Former LSU and Pittsburgh Steelers star safety. Super Bowl champion.

But on Wednesday, in the wake of the tragic New Year’s Day terror attack on Bourbon Street that resulted in at least 15 deaths and more than 35 injured, he was simply a concerned father.

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During a Friday morning appearance on ESPN’s Get Up, Clark — a New Orleans native in town for the College Football Playoff national quarterfinal Sugar Bowl between Georgia and Notre Dame, which the Fighting Irish won 23-10 Thursday — recalled his first-hand experience in the harrowing hours immediately following the early Wednesday morning incident, and how it impacted his family.

“I think the first thing is individually we felt blessed. I’m 15 minutes away from where the tragedy happened. I was sleeping 5 minutes away. I was out in the French Quarter just an hour before that with some of Jordan’s friends that came into town to watch the game,” said Clark, whose son, Jordan, is a Notre Dame senior safety. “And I think the first thing you do is you check on all of your people. I wanted to make sure my daughter and her boyfriend had made it in. I checked on Jordan’s friends obviously, and then all of my family members that were in town or lived there who were also there for the game. And then you start to wonder if anyone from Notre Dame was involved.”

Clark then recalled that exact concern was top of mind for Irish head football coach Marcus Freeman, whose first question on a Wednesday conference call between Notre Dame officials, coaches, players and their families was, “How are our families doing?”

Clark acknowledged the victims on the terrorist attack, those who died or lost loved ones. That included former Princeton football player Tiger Bech, the older brother of TCU senior receiver and former LSU transfer Jack Bech, as well as fellow Archbishop Shaw (Marrero, La.) High alum Hubert Gauthreaux, both of whom were among the 15 killed in the attack.

“I think the other piece, the other connection – Tiger Bech, the football player from Princeton, his uncle Blaine was on the (early 2000s LSU) team with me, I know Blake, his other uncle, Jack (Bech) who played at LSU,” Clark continued. “A young man named Hubert Gauthreaux, graduated from my high school, my alma mater just three years ago, he was 21 years old. My brother’s oldest son lost a family member who was only an 18-year-old young lady. So it was all of those things you’re dealing with.”

But it was a conversation with his concerned son, Jordan, that really put everything into perspective for Clark.

“Then on Wednesday around noon, Jordan called me crying, he said, ‘Dad, I want you to go home. Mom, I want you to go home. I don’t think any of you need to be here.’ He was trying to book tickets for his friends to fly out as well because he was so scared about what was going to happen to us because he felt like we didn’t have the protection that he did,” Clark recalled. “So when it got to the end of it, I was grateful that I wasn’t someone who had to handle the loss of a family member, who had to handle the loss of someone close to me and blessed to feel that, but also sad. And understanding that an outcome, in what this football game was, whoever lost this game wasn’t going to be the biggest loser of the week. It’s the city of New Orleans, it’s the 15 families that lost family members.

“And I do want to say this, … there were first responders and officers that ran into the fire – the literal fire, the gunfire from this terrorist attack – and they didn’t care about the color of the people they were saving, they didn’t care about the ethnicity of those people, their background or their political affiliation,” Clark continued. “They ran to those people because they were human. So, to the two officers that were injured, to all the officers that responded, I just want to say ‘Thank you.’ Thank you for showing the best of us.

“New Orleans is an amazing city with amazing people, and I know they will rebound, and I hope this brings everyone together. But this was a scary situation, it was a sad situation, and it put football into perspective for me. Because more than I wanted to see Jordan win the game, I just wanted to see his face again and all of our loved ones, and thank God we got to do that.”