Former Ohio State football nose guard Shane Clark bedevils expectations as an author

Writers write, but artists really throw themselves into their work.

That may be why at one point in the novel "The Devil Won't Keep Us Apart" there's a scene in which the main character, an older man, is in front of a television. He blows a gasket while watching No. 62, a reserve defensive lineman, jump offside in the Rose Bowl. He curses at the "no good, too short, too fat" player who costs Ohio State 5 yards.

Shane Clark was that defensive lineman. He's also the book's author.

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"I thought it was pretty funny," he said of the self-insert, the one factual element in an otherwise fictional story about a murder at an Ohio prison and how it impacts a local boy and a foreign national.

A 1992 graduate of Chillicothe High School, Clark joined OSU as a walk-on and backed up Luke Fickell. There wasn't much of a chance for him to earn playing time given that Fickell started 50 consecutive games.

"I probably tried to quit 20 times my first year here, but my mom wouldn't let me," he told The Dispatch during a 1996 interview.

But he stuck it out and played for two years before earning a scholarship, eventually earning bachelor's and master's degrees. All of which taught him the patience it later took to put "25,000 to 30,000" words to the page.

"Everything that I am today, I owe a large part of that to my experiences at Ohio State," Clark said. "There's no doubt in my mind that I wouldn't have done that, I wouldn't have been able to persevere through what it took to do this if it wasn't for that."

It also provided him with a support system that has done far more than merely help him pursue a career as a writer.

"I've had some trials and tribulations in life that, if it weren't for my friends at Ohio State ... I might have never made it through, to be honest with you," Clark said. "I had some mental health issues about 10 years ago, and if it wasn't for coach (John) Cooper and coach (Jim) Heacock and Luke Fickell and Ryan Miller, I question whether I'd even be here."

He estimates it was six or seven years ago that he started the first draft of "The Devil Won't Keep Us Apart." He had friends and family (he has a wife and four kids) read it, and while they loved it, Clark had a problem: The company helping him publish the story wanted someone outside his immediate circle to provide him with a testimonial.

"I didn't want to ask anybody I played football with because they've got busy lives," Clark answered when the publisher requested a review from somebody famous.

But Clark knew of an author he was fairly certain lived close.

"So I looked up Donald Ray Pollock's address and it showed up Chillicothe," Clark said. "I put it in my phone, and I drove up to his house and knocked on his door."

Clark talked to Pollock, an author of three novels – all of which have had their movie rights sold – as well as a fellow Ohio State grad. Clark said he informed Pollock he was a former Buckeyes football player, and laughed when he swore it's the only time he's ever tried to leverage his status that way.

"I thought maybe that would help," Clark said.

Whether it did or not, Pollock agreed and said he would get back to Clark in two weeks.

"I checked my email probably 3000 times just waiting for a response," Clark said. "And about three weeks later, he responded on a Sunday. I was by myself. I'll never forget it. He loved it, and I went on my front porch and cried because that was validation."

Pollock's review? In part it read: "Honestly, people, this book kept me reading way past my bedtime, and I don't find many that can do that these days. I can't wait to see what (Clark) comes up with next."

He shouldn't have to wait too long. Clark has two other manuscripts that "will definitely be published at some point."

The hope is that they are as well received as his first work, with much of the positive feedback coming from a very different group of people than that which rooted for the nose guard in Scarlet and Gray.

"A lady in Argentina, she reached out to me on Twitter, and she said it was the best book she read in five years," Clark said. "So here's a woman who lives, what? 5,000 miles away and she doesn't know who Shane Clark is, and she freaking loved my book, so I thought that was cool."

It especially means a lot to Clark because, "I'd rather have this book or being an author define me. ... I'd like to think I'm a better writer than I was a football player."

A gritty former defensive lineman surviving mental health struggles to spend the next chapter of his life writing gritty fiction? That's a plot twist only Clark could have seen coming.

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This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Where are they now: Former Ohio State nose guard Shane Clark