The562’s coverage of Long Beach Wilson Athletics is sponsored by Joel Bitonio, Class of 2009.
Travis Clark (left) is taking over the Wilson football program; he was the Chargers’ High School Coach of the Year in 2018
Wilson High has hired longtime Lawndale football head coach Travis Clark to take over the Bruins’ football program, multiple sources have confirmed. The announcement is expected to be made shortly by the school. The sources requested anonymity due to not being authorized to speak publicly about the hire yet.
The Bruins recently parted ways with coach Scott Meyer after three seasons with his alma mater.
Clark takes over a Wilson team with young talent that’s just missed out on the postseason recently. They had no shortage of applicants for the coaching position, including Long Beach coaching legend Raul Lara, who won five CIF-SS Division 1 titles at Long Beach Poly and is currently in the midst of a successful tenure at St. Anthony. Lara interviewed and was a finalist but withdrew his name from contention, according to sources at Wilson and St. Anthony who were not authorized to speak publicly on the matter.
Clark is an experienced, successful coach. He has been coaching for 22 years, and has been the head coach at Lawndale High for the last nine seasons, winning a Division 5 CIF-SS and Division II CIF State title in 2018; his teams won the Ocean League seven times and he was named Ocean League Coach of the Year each time. He was also the CIF-SS Coach of the Year in 2018 and the Pioneer League Coach of the year the last three seasons.
Prior to his career at Lawndale he was the head coach at Santa Monica High from 2009-2015 and was a defensive coordinator and assistant coach at Inglewood High and Santa Monica High dating back to 1996.
We’ll have more from coach Clark as well as the school’s administration once the hire is announced.
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