Buzzer Beater Found His Beat 

 

If he closes his eyes, he can see it all like it happened yesterday: coming off a screen, he drives toward the basket, receives the pass, stops and pops from 15 feet, then swish. Pandemonium. Ears ringing from the cheers. And Mark Womack’s name is forever connected with one of Yellow Jacket men’s basketball biggest victories, a giant 80-78 district championship W over Defiance College that sent Cedarville to the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics national tournament in 1981. 

 

Mark’s famous jumper was also the last field goal made in what was then the Tyler Gymnasium, which is now Tyler Digital Communication Center. The following season, Cedarville basketball would begin playing home games in Stranahan Gymnasium, located in what was then the new Callan Athletic Center. Callan is currently undergoing an expansion and renovation as part of One Thousand Days Transformed: The Campaign for Cedarville.  

 

Beyond his career in basketball, he was also a golfer on two NAIA tournament teams for Cedarville.  

For Mark, his playing days were only the beginning of a lifetime connection with Cedarville athletics. Mark is the first and only sports information director in Cedarville history, now in his 39th year in that role, and he is also the long-time play-by-play voice of Yellow Jacket basketball. He was awarded the Clarence “Ike” Pearson Award in 2000 by the NAIA-Sports Information Directors Association for his outstanding achievements as an SID.  

 

He’s sought the Lord about serving in other places or even in other capacities at the University. But for Mark, he’s found his groove, as sportscasters like to say of players performing at the top of their game. He loves where the Lord has him, he has forever friends that he made during undergraduate days, and he sees how God has provided him a way to make a difference through his passion for Cedarville and sports and his love for writing and broadcasting.  

 

“The Lord has given me specific talents and a way to communicate and to use my interest in athletics to share about what Cedarville is, who we are, and who our students are,” he shares during the podcast. “It’s just a daily prayer to the Lord, ‘God, how do you want to use me today?’ My only hope is in Him, bringing all that together to bring praise to Him.”  

 

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Mark Womack and Jim Clark, assistant sports information director, were honored with the inaugural Great Midwest Athletic Conference Sports Information Director (SID) Staff of the Year Award in 2020.