Umatilla Baseball Head Coach Tanner Clark Returns to the Lightning as an Assistant
Leesburg, Fla- When it comes to baseball, full circle moments are rare, but that's exactly what Tanner Clark has been experiencing in recent years. After finishing his last season of baseball in 2021, he would soon get the nod to become the new head coach for Umatilla High School Baseball where he once played less than a decade ago.
Growing up, the baseball lifer began playing at a young age with his dad being a coach himself at Springstead High School in Spring Hill. Clark grew up going to these games, often joining his dad at home plate meetings before first pitch. When he was around the age of six, the soon to be D-1 catcher moved to Umatilla where he would eventually play high school ball there for two seasons.
“Growing up around the game of baseball with my dad being there has been my main upbringing and that's why I love baseball,” said Clark.
With the Lightnings inaugural season in 2007, Clark was already 10 years old and like many young fans that follow the team, he too believed that they were professionals that happened to be playing right down the road. Little did he know at the time that not only would he get the chance to play for Leesburg, but he would get to coach for the summer league team as well.
After high school, the catcher began his collegiate career at Lake Sumter State College under Coach Billings for two spring seasons before transferring to the University of North Florida. Clark noted that the reason for his smooth transition from Lake Sumter to UNF was thanks to Coach Billings efforts to help get him ready for D-1 baseball.
“Coach Billings does a very good job at preparing you for the next level,” said Leesburg’s assistant coach. “He prepared me like crazy for division one baseball, just teaching me how to play the game the right way and how to be a good human being.”
Fast-forward to this May where Clark just finished up his 4th year as head coach for Umatilla, leading them to a winning record in every year since his tenure began. This year, the team was just one win away from making the regional finals after winning the district championship in 2024 for the first time in 22 years.
“I remember as a player being in the district tournament and making it to the championship in my sophomore year and we lost,” said Clark. “I came back as a coach and found out we hadn’t won the district championship in 22 years, so i was like that’s the ultimate goal, that we got to win a district championship.”
The second full circle moment came this year when Clark was asked to join the Lightning coaching staff alongside head coach, Rich Billings and his father, Rich Billings Sr. Clark played with Leesburg for three seasons between 2018-2020, playing in 73 games for Coach Billings across the three seasons, finishing with 48 hits and 36 RBIs.
During the past three summers, Clark was a coach for Power Baseball, a travel baseball organization out of Orlando that has seen 70% of its alumni play in college. Though firmly invested in high school coaching during the spring, he welcomed the chance to work with college-level players and develop alongside Coach Billings.
“I just wanted to get that experience under my belt, to coach with Coach Billings because he and I are very similar when it comes to coaching philosophy,” said Clark. “I model a lot of what I do after Coach Billings.”
The Umatilla native is not just one of the assistants for Leesburg but also has the important role of third base coach. This is something Clark is used to doing during the high school season for Umatilla and he has not been scared to create havoc on the base paths so far this season.
So far Clark’s aggressive play style on the base paths have paid off for the most part with the Lightning scoring over 100 runs in the first 15 games. Gaining the players' trust has been a huge part of that success on the bases and with Clark’s young age, it's been easier for him to relate to them.
With the relationship between the players off to a great start, Clark touched on how the chemistry with Coach Billings and Coach Billings Sr has carried over since his playing days.
“It’s been super cool, just the difference between me playing with them and now coaching alongside them,” said Clark. “You become closer whenever you coach alongside them, so it’s just a really cool moment and cool experience to become a coach after playing for them.”
Speaking on how the team has performed so far, the UNF product noted that the team has started to do the little things right, like throwing strikes, getting ahead of batters, and limiting strikeouts at the plate. Clark believes that the players are starting to fully buy in to what the coaching staff has been preaching to them through the first two weeks.
Like Coach Billings has discussed in his post-game interviews, Clark too highlighted how important it was for the offense to keep the strikeouts down. It seems like this advice has paid off as the Lightning offense has the fewest strikeouts of any team in the league with 90. In fact, Leesburg is the only team that has under 100 strikeouts in the first 15 games.
For Clark, being able to see this early growth from the team makes it even more rewarding to give back to the community, now as a coach. He described how much it means to him to put a Lightning uniform back on and represent his hometown once again.
“I’m super grateful, I still see the same faces in the stadium,” said Clark. “It’s really cool and once again it's a full circle moment because they used to watch me play and now, they are seeing me coach.”
With the Lightning approaching the halfway mark, the pitching staff has started to find its stride as the bats continue to showcase their dominance. Next up is a four-game set against the Squeeze, where the team looks to create some separation in second before a key matchup with the first place River Rats next weekend.
Vic Maslia (Syracuse University)