Army West Point Athletics
MISSION FIRST: Filling His Role
November 01, 2016 | General, Men's Basketball
Almost 30 years later, Kevin Houston remembers the afternoon vividly. He was a West Point senior, the captain of the Army basketball team. He was also the leading scorer in the nation.
Every day in practice, he found himself matched up against Mark Clouse, a freshman from Cincinnati, who had become a solid player off the bench for coach Les Wohtke's team – someone who could play good defense and consistently make an open shot.
"Kevin was double-teamed all the time," Clouse says with a smile on a hot summer afternoon in Morristown, N.J., a stone's throw from Mendham, his home base for the last six years. "I'd stand in the corner with my arm up. Often as not, Kevin would find me and I'd be all alone."
In practice though, Clouse wasn't waiting for Houston to find him, he was trying to drape himself on Houston at all times. Coach's orders. "I was supposed to make it as hard as I could for him," Clouse says. "Push him, chase him, annoy him. That was my job. It wasn't easy. Kevin was very crafty. I've always told people that Kevin was Larry Bird in a 5'10" body. That made trying to guard him a serious challenge."
Which, much like everything else Clouse has taken on in life, he took on with zeal.
He was so zealous that one afternoon, Houston did something he had never done in four years.
"I threw an elbow at him," Houston says, failing to suppress a laugh. "Only time I ever threw one in practice or in a game. He got to me. I'm not sure who was more surprised – Mark or me."
"It was me," Clouse says. "But I figured I was doing what I was supposed to do."
There haven't been many times in Clouse's life when he hasn't done what he's supposed to do – and done it well. He did it as a basketball player; as a cadet; as a pilot in the Army Air Corps and, nowadays, as a hugely successful businessman: last April, at the age of 47, he was named the Chief Executive Officer of Pinnacle, one of the largest food distributors in the country.
Clouse graduated from West Point in 1990 – as President of his class. He only played basketball for two years because a bad case of frostbite that happened when he was stationed in Alaska during the summer after his sophomore year took away his ability to cut and push-off as effectively as he needed to.
"I didn't have much margin for error in order to compete athletically at the Division I level," he says. "It wasn't as if I was in great pain or anything, but I knew I'd lost something – just enough to make a difference. That's when I went in and told coach Wothke that I didn't think I should play that season. He was so loyal that I'm pretty sure he would have played me ahead of some of the younger guys we had coming in. That wouldn't have been the best thing for the team. I needed to get out of their way.
"Still, it was the hardest decision I've ever made in my life. Basketball was always my passion."
Clouse ran some track and cross country in junior high school but was a year-round basketball player. "I loved the fact that it was a team sport but you could also spend hours alone working on your game," he says. "I think that feeling has shaped a lot of what I've become. I'm a great believer that leadership is the differentiator in life. A lot of people are smart, very smart. But if you can lead WELL, then you separate yourself."
Clouse was a star at Northwest High School, graduating as the school's all-time leading scorer and was all-city as a senior – no small achievement since Cincinnati produced 18 Division I players in the winter of 1986, including Tyrone Hill, the 11th player chosen in the 1990 NBA draft, and Joe Frederick, who went on to start at Notre Dame.
Clouse was also an excellent student and a leader in student government at Northwest. He was recruited by a number of schools that played Division I basketball and also had excellent academic reputations: West Point; the Air Force Academy; Yale; Dartmouth and William and Mary among them.
"In the end the decision came down to two things," he says. "I was always into leadership, I liked the idea of being a leader because I think good leaders are so important – in anything," he says. "I wasn't as passionate about the idea of being in the military as going to a place that taught leadership.
"But the other thing was when I visited I just felt so comfortable with the guys on the basketball team. I felt like I'd fit in with them. Once I'd done that, the decision was pretty easy for me."
Basketball helped get Clouse through "Beast Barracks."
"We got to practice two or three afternoons a week," he says. "The older guys on the team became my support group in a lot of ways – actually for all the Plebes I think. If you play on a team at Army, you're lucky because you bond with the guys you play with and you also bond with the guys in your company. It makes things a lot easier."
Like most Plebes, Clouse struggled in every possible way first semester: academically, physically, emotionally. It wasn't until he had survived that first semester that he became a contributor on the basketball court, coming off the bench to give Army an extra shooter and to play good defense – not to mention annoy Houston in practice.
"He was one of those guys who will do anything to make the team better," Houston says. "If coach Wothke had asked him to run into a wall head-first, he'd have done it."
Army was 14-15 that season and finished third in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference with an 8-6 record. In those days, the league included schools like LaSalle, Iona and Fairfield, all excellent basketball schools. The Black Knights played non-conference games against Utah, Seton Hall and Navy – which was then in the Colonial Athletic Association. The Midshipmen were coming off a run to the Elite Eight the previous season and were led by national Player of the Year David Robinson. Led by Houston's 37 points, Army almost ruined Robinson's Senior Day game, leading most of the afternoon before losing in overtime.
"Even though we lost, that's one of the most unforgettable days of my life," Clouse says. "Kevin was unbelievable. We all believed we were going to win."
They lost in overtime and ended up just missing out on Army's first .500 season since Mike Krzyzewski's 1979 team had finished 14-11.
A year later, with Houston gone, Clouse played more but the team won less. Then came the frostbite and the end of his playing days. By then, he had decided he wanted to become a pilot.
"Another challenge," Clouse says, grinning. "Different challenge than guarding Kevin Houston every day, but a challenge nevertheless."
He spent six-and-a-half years as a helicopter pilot, his last posting being in South Korea. By then, he had met and married Kathy McLeod, a teacher he'd been introduced to by a fellow pilot while he was stationed at Fort Irwin in Barstow, Calif.
"One of the most god-forsaken patches of land on earth," Clouse remembers. "It's right on the edge of the Mojave Desert. But being stationed there worked out well for me."
Kathy had run track – "actually, she always says she wasn't a runner, she was a SPRINTER," Clouse says. "Anything over 100 yards was not for her."
Both loved sports and they were married about a year after they started dating. Both their sons are football players: Spenser is a junior wide receiver at Tufts University and Logan is a quarterback, a freshman starter at Mendham High School.
Once Clouse had decided not to make the Army a career, he had to figure out what he wanted to do next. He thought about the FBI, but decided to give business a try. He landed at Kraft Foods, figuring he'd try it for a year. He stayed for 20.
By the time Clouse went to work for Kraft, he and Kathy were starting their family. They lived all over the country and all over the world. Most importantly, Clouse was assigned to run Kraft-China in 2006. While there, he launched Oreo as a brand in China and it was wildly successful.
"That was a very big deal for me, that we were able to do in China with Oreo what we did," Clouse says. "I mean you're talking about one of the most iconic brands in the world. There are 70,000 Oreos consumed every second on the planet. Think about that."
Clouse has only one regret about his time in Beijing. "I had great tickets to see the Olympic gold medal game in 2008," he says. "'Coach K's' (Mike Krzyzewski) first Olympic team. The week before the Olympics, I got transferred to Brazil, so I couldn't go to the game. The only good news was that some friends of mine had great seats to see the U.S. win that game."
Clouse's two years in China put him on the path that led to him eventually becoming the Chief Commercial Officer for Mondolez International Inc. – a spinoff of Kraft. His success there got the attention of Pinnacle, which offered him the spot as CEO this past April.
"It's been hectic," Clouse says, three months into the job on the same afternoon in which he had delivered the first earnings report to stockholders. "Good news is our earnings were good. Makes it a lot easier."
Clouse can handle days that aren't as easy and he credits his four years at West Point with that.
"West Point was a life-altering experience for me," he says. "I think it's that way for most of us who've gone to school there. The bonds that are established there are unique. It's like a fraternity you join forever. One of the best things that has happened since we moved to New Jersey is re-connecting with the Academy – with current cadets and with old friends who I hadn't seen for a long time."
Clouse credits recently departed basketball coach Zach Spiker with a good deal of that. Soon after arriving, Spiker began staging an annual alumni game and weekend for former basketball players. Spiker also asked a lot of former players to speak to current players about how they've achieved the success they have in life. Clouse was one of them.
"Look, it would be great if they all became generals," Clouse says with a smile. "But if they don't, I want them to know that the skills they're learning will convert to almost anything else they want to do in life. They're all smart and talented or they wouldn't be at West Point.
"I think of all the things I learned there, the most important was the notion of playing for one another. You learn it in basketball and you learn it as a cadet. I remember reading a study that was done during the Vietnam War. It asked the question how was it that soldiers were willing to jump out of fox holes even though they knew by doing so they faced almost certain death. The answer was that they didn't want to let down the others in the fox hole.
"Playing for one another. It's something we all learn. It's the gift that West Point gives to us."
Clouse admits that he was surprised when he was first informed that he had been selected to be part of "Mission First."
"To me, Kevin (profiled last year) is the kind of athlete who belongs in "Mission First." But then when I thought about it, I realized that most athletes at West Point are like me: guys who played a role, who tried to contribute in any way they could and who benefitted and learned from the experience."
He smiles again. "I guess I'm happy to represent all those Army athletes. I think we've got a lot to be proud of when you think about it."
Certainly his old teammates – stars and non-stars – would agree with that.
Every day in practice, he found himself matched up against Mark Clouse, a freshman from Cincinnati, who had become a solid player off the bench for coach Les Wohtke's team – someone who could play good defense and consistently make an open shot.
"Kevin was double-teamed all the time," Clouse says with a smile on a hot summer afternoon in Morristown, N.J., a stone's throw from Mendham, his home base for the last six years. "I'd stand in the corner with my arm up. Often as not, Kevin would find me and I'd be all alone."
In practice though, Clouse wasn't waiting for Houston to find him, he was trying to drape himself on Houston at all times. Coach's orders. "I was supposed to make it as hard as I could for him," Clouse says. "Push him, chase him, annoy him. That was my job. It wasn't easy. Kevin was very crafty. I've always told people that Kevin was Larry Bird in a 5'10" body. That made trying to guard him a serious challenge."
Which, much like everything else Clouse has taken on in life, he took on with zeal.
He was so zealous that one afternoon, Houston did something he had never done in four years.
"I threw an elbow at him," Houston says, failing to suppress a laugh. "Only time I ever threw one in practice or in a game. He got to me. I'm not sure who was more surprised – Mark or me."
"It was me," Clouse says. "But I figured I was doing what I was supposed to do."
There haven't been many times in Clouse's life when he hasn't done what he's supposed to do – and done it well. He did it as a basketball player; as a cadet; as a pilot in the Army Air Corps and, nowadays, as a hugely successful businessman: last April, at the age of 47, he was named the Chief Executive Officer of Pinnacle, one of the largest food distributors in the country.
Clouse graduated from West Point in 1990 – as President of his class. He only played basketball for two years because a bad case of frostbite that happened when he was stationed in Alaska during the summer after his sophomore year took away his ability to cut and push-off as effectively as he needed to.
"I didn't have much margin for error in order to compete athletically at the Division I level," he says. "It wasn't as if I was in great pain or anything, but I knew I'd lost something – just enough to make a difference. That's when I went in and told coach Wothke that I didn't think I should play that season. He was so loyal that I'm pretty sure he would have played me ahead of some of the younger guys we had coming in. That wouldn't have been the best thing for the team. I needed to get out of their way.
"Still, it was the hardest decision I've ever made in my life. Basketball was always my passion."
Clouse ran some track and cross country in junior high school but was a year-round basketball player. "I loved the fact that it was a team sport but you could also spend hours alone working on your game," he says. "I think that feeling has shaped a lot of what I've become. I'm a great believer that leadership is the differentiator in life. A lot of people are smart, very smart. But if you can lead WELL, then you separate yourself."
Clouse was a star at Northwest High School, graduating as the school's all-time leading scorer and was all-city as a senior – no small achievement since Cincinnati produced 18 Division I players in the winter of 1986, including Tyrone Hill, the 11th player chosen in the 1990 NBA draft, and Joe Frederick, who went on to start at Notre Dame.
Clouse was also an excellent student and a leader in student government at Northwest. He was recruited by a number of schools that played Division I basketball and also had excellent academic reputations: West Point; the Air Force Academy; Yale; Dartmouth and William and Mary among them.
"In the end the decision came down to two things," he says. "I was always into leadership, I liked the idea of being a leader because I think good leaders are so important – in anything," he says. "I wasn't as passionate about the idea of being in the military as going to a place that taught leadership.
"But the other thing was when I visited I just felt so comfortable with the guys on the basketball team. I felt like I'd fit in with them. Once I'd done that, the decision was pretty easy for me."
Basketball helped get Clouse through "Beast Barracks."
"We got to practice two or three afternoons a week," he says. "The older guys on the team became my support group in a lot of ways – actually for all the Plebes I think. If you play on a team at Army, you're lucky because you bond with the guys you play with and you also bond with the guys in your company. It makes things a lot easier."
Like most Plebes, Clouse struggled in every possible way first semester: academically, physically, emotionally. It wasn't until he had survived that first semester that he became a contributor on the basketball court, coming off the bench to give Army an extra shooter and to play good defense – not to mention annoy Houston in practice.
"He was one of those guys who will do anything to make the team better," Houston says. "If coach Wothke had asked him to run into a wall head-first, he'd have done it."
Army was 14-15 that season and finished third in the Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference with an 8-6 record. In those days, the league included schools like LaSalle, Iona and Fairfield, all excellent basketball schools. The Black Knights played non-conference games against Utah, Seton Hall and Navy – which was then in the Colonial Athletic Association. The Midshipmen were coming off a run to the Elite Eight the previous season and were led by national Player of the Year David Robinson. Led by Houston's 37 points, Army almost ruined Robinson's Senior Day game, leading most of the afternoon before losing in overtime.
"Even though we lost, that's one of the most unforgettable days of my life," Clouse says. "Kevin was unbelievable. We all believed we were going to win."
They lost in overtime and ended up just missing out on Army's first .500 season since Mike Krzyzewski's 1979 team had finished 14-11.
A year later, with Houston gone, Clouse played more but the team won less. Then came the frostbite and the end of his playing days. By then, he had decided he wanted to become a pilot.
"Another challenge," Clouse says, grinning. "Different challenge than guarding Kevin Houston every day, but a challenge nevertheless."
He spent six-and-a-half years as a helicopter pilot, his last posting being in South Korea. By then, he had met and married Kathy McLeod, a teacher he'd been introduced to by a fellow pilot while he was stationed at Fort Irwin in Barstow, Calif.
"One of the most god-forsaken patches of land on earth," Clouse remembers. "It's right on the edge of the Mojave Desert. But being stationed there worked out well for me."
Kathy had run track – "actually, she always says she wasn't a runner, she was a SPRINTER," Clouse says. "Anything over 100 yards was not for her."
Both loved sports and they were married about a year after they started dating. Both their sons are football players: Spenser is a junior wide receiver at Tufts University and Logan is a quarterback, a freshman starter at Mendham High School.
Once Clouse had decided not to make the Army a career, he had to figure out what he wanted to do next. He thought about the FBI, but decided to give business a try. He landed at Kraft Foods, figuring he'd try it for a year. He stayed for 20.
By the time Clouse went to work for Kraft, he and Kathy were starting their family. They lived all over the country and all over the world. Most importantly, Clouse was assigned to run Kraft-China in 2006. While there, he launched Oreo as a brand in China and it was wildly successful.
"That was a very big deal for me, that we were able to do in China with Oreo what we did," Clouse says. "I mean you're talking about one of the most iconic brands in the world. There are 70,000 Oreos consumed every second on the planet. Think about that."
Clouse has only one regret about his time in Beijing. "I had great tickets to see the Olympic gold medal game in 2008," he says. "'Coach K's' (Mike Krzyzewski) first Olympic team. The week before the Olympics, I got transferred to Brazil, so I couldn't go to the game. The only good news was that some friends of mine had great seats to see the U.S. win that game."
Clouse's two years in China put him on the path that led to him eventually becoming the Chief Commercial Officer for Mondolez International Inc. – a spinoff of Kraft. His success there got the attention of Pinnacle, which offered him the spot as CEO this past April.
"It's been hectic," Clouse says, three months into the job on the same afternoon in which he had delivered the first earnings report to stockholders. "Good news is our earnings were good. Makes it a lot easier."
Clouse can handle days that aren't as easy and he credits his four years at West Point with that.
"West Point was a life-altering experience for me," he says. "I think it's that way for most of us who've gone to school there. The bonds that are established there are unique. It's like a fraternity you join forever. One of the best things that has happened since we moved to New Jersey is re-connecting with the Academy – with current cadets and with old friends who I hadn't seen for a long time."
Clouse credits recently departed basketball coach Zach Spiker with a good deal of that. Soon after arriving, Spiker began staging an annual alumni game and weekend for former basketball players. Spiker also asked a lot of former players to speak to current players about how they've achieved the success they have in life. Clouse was one of them.
"Look, it would be great if they all became generals," Clouse says with a smile. "But if they don't, I want them to know that the skills they're learning will convert to almost anything else they want to do in life. They're all smart and talented or they wouldn't be at West Point.
"I think of all the things I learned there, the most important was the notion of playing for one another. You learn it in basketball and you learn it as a cadet. I remember reading a study that was done during the Vietnam War. It asked the question how was it that soldiers were willing to jump out of fox holes even though they knew by doing so they faced almost certain death. The answer was that they didn't want to let down the others in the fox hole.
"Playing for one another. It's something we all learn. It's the gift that West Point gives to us."
Clouse admits that he was surprised when he was first informed that he had been selected to be part of "Mission First."
"To me, Kevin (profiled last year) is the kind of athlete who belongs in "Mission First." But then when I thought about it, I realized that most athletes at West Point are like me: guys who played a role, who tried to contribute in any way they could and who benefitted and learned from the experience."
He smiles again. "I guess I'm happy to represent all those Army athletes. I think we've got a lot to be proud of when you think about it."
Certainly his old teammates – stars and non-stars – would agree with that.
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