Jonathan Clark is hardly your typical Grade 8 science teacher. Although heâs been teaching in California for several years, itâs not his lesson plans that are going viral.
The teacher from Clovis North Educational Center in Fresno, Calif., actually moonlights as a professional basketball dunker and his videos on have been viewed hundreds of thousands of times.
Some even show him flipping and dunking over his students, while other clips show tricks usually reserved for NBA players.
âItâs kind of a win-win for me in a sense because I do what I enjoy and the kids really get a kick out of it,â he told CTVNews.ca in a phone interview.
Clark use to keep his dunking life under wraps because he didnât want to distract his students.
âBut throughout this year, Iâve just been focused on building rapport with the kids and I kind of saw it [dunking] helped with them âbuyingâ into class,â he said. âAnd it was an opportunity to show my personality -- show my human side.â
âThe kids really gravitated towards it and made class more fun ⌠so as long as we were taking care of work definitely will oblige them and have fun in class [too],â he said.
Clark explains that during normal school days he focuses on classes, marking and homework but when he hangs up a detachable net in his classroom, that signals heâs feeling up for dunking.
âOn days where we just finished taking a quiz or ⌠we have some free time, when the hoopâs up they kind of know itâs a more relaxed situation,â he said.
But Clark is occasionally tapped to perform backflips at school pep rallies.
Clark wants to eventually become a principal
Back when he was finishing college, he thought his life would be in athletics. Heâd done track and field in school and even competed for a spot on the U.S. Olympic basketball team in 2012.
When that didnât work out, he tried making a career out of his love for dunking.
âBut that [wouldnât] pay the bills long term,â he admitted, adding he even tore his ACL in 2014. âAnd that lit a fire under me that Iâm not superhuman.â
He decided to become a collegiate coach and went back to school to get a masterâs degree in kinesiology. But to help pay for the bills, he took up substitute teaching.
âThen I fell in love with the school system ⌠and enjoyed coming to class and seeing students,â he said. âIt was just something I knew I wanted to do.â
Thatâs when he applied to get his formal teaching credentials.
When heâs not teaching and not slamming dunks, he actually has used his talents to be a motion capture actor for video game studios Electronic Arts and 2K.
But you wonât end up seeing his face. Thatâs because video game developers take his movements he makes in a motion capture suit and they overlay the faces of real players.
âSo when Iâm playing the game and LeBron James ⌠does a specific dunk that is distinct to my style of movement I can tell and say, âoh yeah, thatâs my dunkââ he laughed.
As for his future aspirations, he doesnât want to end up in the NBA but says he wants to be an elementary school principal.
âI think that would be the coolest job ever,â he said. âWhenever I see the principal walking around, when I see the kids looking at him ⌠itâs someone they respect.â