At 6’ 6” Bob Clousson is a hard man to miss. So is his list of accomplishments. A native of Clarksburg, West VA, the Washington Irving High basketball star went on to West Virginia University on a basketball scholarship in 1955. Playing Center along side legends Jerry West and Hot Rod Hundley, he helped turn the team into a nationally ranked powerhouse that was voted number one in a national newspaper poll in ’57 and they went to the Final Four in Louisville, KY in 1959. They lost in the final game of the national championship by a single point – 71-70 – to the University of California at Berkeley.Bob still remembers his stats. “I scored 12 points, going 5 for 5 from the field and 2 for 2 from the foul line. But I haven’t really thought about that loss for at least the last couple of hours,” Bob says with customary good-humor.
He still kids about former teammates, too. “I made Jerry West famous, feeding him the ball all the time so he could score all those points.” The two still stay in touch, seeing one another at the team’s 50th reunion in Morgantown two years ago. From time to time West has left him tickets for games.
“When I was in Cincinnati, and Jerry was GM of the Lakers he left me tickets for a game. I got to see Kobe and Shaq play against the Larry Bird coached Pacers.”
Bob’s also done pretty well as a coach. After college he moved to Cincinnati, where he taught high school biology and coached the basketball and track teams for 34 years before retiring. His basketball team went undefeated in ’64, ’65 and ’66 during the regular season and his track team won the State Championship once and was runner-up twice in the Small School Division those same years. One of the things he’s most proud of is the number of his students that went on to play college ball on scholarships.
“I’m just happy for them, that they stuck with it and had some success. You really wish all your kids could win scholarships.”
But no prize he won was better than the heart of his wife Darlene, whom he met during his first year coaching. The two are now married 47 years. The two moved here in 1994, after Bob retired.
“We chose the West Coast of Florida after I scouted the state. Darlene used to come here as a youngster with her family. She loved the beaches and the circus and the Gulf. I loved the golf.” In 1999 they bought a cottage at Sun-N-Fun and have been here ever since. And they love the life. Both enjoy Petanque, they both shoot pool and billiards, Bob plays in the weekly tournaments and they often go to Lido or Siesta Key beach for the day. Darlene enjoys painting and Bob is an avid kayaker.
In winter he kayaks with his good friend and winter resident, Jerry Craig a couple of times a week during season and by himself once a week in summer. Bob’s been all over in his kayak, exploring inter-coastal waterways, Key Largo, and Marathon. Locally he can be found paddling on the waters around Bird Key, Otter Key and the mangroves near Lido. One particular favorite is Myakka, where he enjoys photographing alligators while kayaking. When we spoke to him he had just returned from a morning at Vamo near Midnight Pass.
As part of his kayaking, Bob volunteers with the Sarasota Water Conservation group, measuring and monitoring sea grass with the goal of maintaining the marine life in the water he so much enjoys.
And now, thanks to our summer day camp program, he’s back teaching kayaking to the kids one day a week and coaching basketball too. The team may not be quite ready to travel to the Big Dance and play for the national championship like their coach, but that doesn’t matter to Bob. For him, life at Sun-N-Fun is a slam-dunk.
