On the plaque: The 2003-04 Ivy League and Big 5 Player of the Year, she was just the second player in program history to be named three-time first-team All-Ivy and first-team All-Big 5. A member of Penn's first two Ivy League title teams, she graduated second on Penn's all-time scoring list (1,743 points), third in career rebounds (933), and fourth in career steals (204). At the time of her induction, still held program records for free throws made in a game (16 vs. Drexel in 2002) and career (475).
 
When Jewel Clark C'04 stepped onto the Palestra court for the first time in a Penn uniform, it was as if she had already been there before.
 
In her first game, a Big 5 battle against Saint Joseph's, she dropped 21 points.
 
"It was kind of funny because everyone was like, 'who in the world is this freshman?'" Clark said. "It was weird to me because I feel like any time you play, you should leave a mark on the game. Freshman or senior, I don't care, if you step on the court, you are supposed to produce."
 
As it turns out, Clark had been to the Cathedral of College Basketball before—she played in a Nike competition at The Palestra, when she was a ninth-grader at Thomas Stone (Md.) High School.
 
But throughout her career, no moment was big enough to get Clark off her game, no matter the building.
 
"She always, even from day one as a freshman, carried herself as someone who had been there before," her co-captain and four-year teammate Mikaelyn Austin said. "She, unlike anybody else I had ever met, always seemed like she just knew what she was doing, nothing fazed her."
 
Clark commanded Penn to the program's first two Ivy League titles, as a freshman in 2001 and then again as a senior in 2004. She was a three-time first-team All-Ivy and All-Big 5 selection, winning 2003-04 Ivy League and Big 5 Player of the Year honors after averaging 19.8 points per game as a co-captain her senior season.
 
15 years later, Clark sits third on Penn's all-time scoring list with 1,743 career points and ranks in the top five in program history in rebounds (933) and steals (204). In 2011, she was inducted into the Big 5 Hall of Fame, and now, in 2019, she's being inducted into the Penn Athletics Hall of Fame.
 
"If you had told me the first time I hung out with her that she would eventually be in the Hall of Fame, I would have been like, 'yeah, I could see that,'" Austin said. "It's like the girl was born with a basketball in her hand."
 
Clark was always very organized and composed on the court. Her father Rodney Clark introduced basketball to her and her siblings at a young age, and Jewel was playing in competitive leagues by the time she was five or six, going up against kids who were older and bigger than her.
 
"The very first league I played in, I wasn't allowed to play in it because I was too young, but my father told them I was old enough," Jewel Clark said. "When they finally discovered my age, nobody cared because I was doing pretty well, and it was a co-ed league, so my sister and I were the only girls in the entire league.
 
"Between sixth and eighth grade, when I was playing with the boys, I realized that I had a pretty good chance to continue to grow and play even better with girls," she added.
 
It wasn't until Clark reached high school that she even began competing against other girls, and her experience playing against stronger, faster boys gave her a serious edge. She stood out in high school and soon found herself playing at the collegiate level.
 
Wearing the Red and Blue, the 5-foot-10 Clark contributed immediately and wasn't intimidated by the college game. From the moment she stepped in the door, she was even-keeled and determined to win.
 
"My father raised us in a basketball environment and with a mentality that wherever you go, you can be successful," Clark said. "He put so much basketball skill and foundation in us that I never doubted myself. I wasn't arrogant or overly cocky, I just felt like once you step on the court you have a job to do, and the job's not done unless you win."
 
As a player, Clark was quick and athletic. She loved to run the floor and get behind the defense to score fast-break layups—the easy points were her favorite—but she kept opponents off-balance with a solid foul-line jump shot. She always went up for rebounds, did the dirty work, and wasn't flashy. She preferred to keep it professional.
 
And while Clark didn't say a whole lot on or off the court, opposing teams definitely took note. Being Penn's leading scorer, she faced her fair share of double-teams, but she consistently kept her cool and weathered the storm, doing whatever would help the team the most. If it wasn't her night or if the defense was overplaying her, she'd make sure to get the ball to an open teammate, and then when the defense adjusted off of her, she went back to doing her thing.
 
"Jewel was just smooth, man," Austin said. "On the court, she was almost stealth-like; she would make a move and you wouldn't even realize it until she was already past you. You'd turn, and she somehow or another had already just gotten past you by ten feet and you didn't know what was going on. The basketball was part of her anatomy, and it never really looked like she was ever out of control."
 
Because Clark operated so speedily and silently, her point totals often snuck up on opponents. Some people started referring to her as a "quiet storm." Even coach Kelly Greenberg regularly got on Clark for being too quiet. But as much as Clark kept to herself, she didn't need to yell or be loud to lead her team effectively.
 
Whether during the final seconds of a close game, after a tough loss, or heading into a high-pressure environment like the NCAA Tournament, Clark was a reliable teammate and friend. She was easy to be around, and she always emphasized that a team needs to win together. Her senior year, she had everyone on the team wear matching bracelets to symbolize their unity.
 
"She just really led more by example," Austin said. "You just felt very comfortable knowing, going into a game with her, that she wasn't going to get rattled by anything. I think that was her greatest asset as a leader, she just led really more by being so composed all the time."
 
That's been the defining theme of Clark's life, going with the flow and keeping calm.
 
After college, she explored the professional basketball scene and tried out for a few WNBA teams before a brief stint playing overseas, but when that didn't work out in the long-term, she took it in stride and decided to pursue her other passions.
 
Nowadays, leading her own two children as a mother and managing a class full of eighth-grade students as an English language arts teacher, Jewel Clark is still a smooth operator. No matter what problems or challenges come up in her day-to-day, her disposition remains the way it was when she was the crown jewel of Penn's women's basketball program.
 
"She is very cool, calm, and collected—that's probably the best way I'd describe her—on and off the court. In her now professional life, in her off-the-court life, on the court, her tone never changed," Austin said. "You can just tell by the way her kids are growing into young adults that the type of person she was in college, the type of unspoken leader she was in college, just has not changed one bit."