Butler guard Rotnei Clarke was Oklahoma's Damon Bailey

• Rotnei Clarke is averaging 17.4 points per game for Butler this season
• Clarke spent three years at Arkansas before transferring, and had to sit out the 2011-12 season
• The Bulldogs take on No. 1 Indiana on Saturday

VERDIGRIS, Okla. -- Some basketball players have a jersey retired. Some are honored with a banner. Some lead their team to a state championship.

Rotnei Clarke did all that, and more.

He originated a highway exit.

So many fans wanted to attend his games at Verdigris High School, 21 miles northeast of Tulsa, that highway officials added "Verdigris" to an exit sign on the Will Rogers Turnpike.

"People didn't know how to get here," said Alice Schneider, a teacher at the school.

They found out. They showed up. Not only in Verdigris, but at gyms throughout the state. People had to see this small, charismatic teen from rural Oklahoma who could shoot so accurately from so far away.

Maybe it was fate that Clarke ended up at a university like Butler, which takes on the top-ranked Indiana Hoosiers on Saturday at Bankers Life Fieldhouse. Butler's small campus and close-knit team replicate his high school experience, and a basketball story like his is oh-so-familiar.

Clarke was Oklahoma's Damon Bailey.

As a youngster, Clarke played on a summer travel team. Its nickname? Hoosiers.

Clarke and Bailey became their states' all-time leading scorers. Both led their teams to state titles. Both attracted large crowds.

People came for a show, and Rotnei usually delivered. As a senior, he averaged 41 points a game. In his career, he scored more than 50 seven times and more than 60 twice.

Fans clamored for souvenirs, and he gave them armbands, wristbands, t-shirts or socks he had worn. There is a Rotnei Clarke Road sign, but it is often stolen.

"When I think back on it, it was a crazy deal," he said. "It was fun. But at the same time, there was a lot of pressure on every game."

His career climaxed in the 2008 state finals at Oklahoma City before more than 13,000 (in a 10,000-seat arena) in what is believed to be the state's largest audience ever for high school basketball. Fans sat in the aisles. Hundreds were turned away at the door.

Clarke scored 35 points to lead Verdigris to the Class 3A title over Tahlequah Sequoyah 62-51. Afterward, he stayed and signed autographs. For 90 minutes.

"People were picking tickets off the floor just to have him sign," said his father, Conley, an assistant coach for the team.

Building a 'cult following'

Clarke is one-sixteenth Cherokee and a descendant of those who walked in the Trail of Tears, the forced relocation of several tribes from eastern states to Oklahoma. He shares Native American ancestry with two of the state's favorite sons, humorist Will Rogers and athlete Jim Thorpe.

Oklahoma is known for football, and Clarke is named for a former University of Oklahoma football player, Rotnei Anderson. But Rotnei Clarke brought basketball into pop culture.

Clarke's father used to be suspicious after games because there were "skateboarders and gangbangers" waiting for his son. All they wanted was an autograph.

"He just affected all different kids like that. It was a cult following," Conley Clarke said.

Verdigris, along Route 66, is so small that it has a Claremore mailing address and a Catoosa telephone prefix. For years, the local bank was housed in a trailer.

The only place to get a burger is B.J.'s Pit Stop, a convenience store whose specialty cuisine is calzones. Verdigris High School closed in the 1940s, didn't reopen until the late '90s, and enrollment is little more than 300. In a state featuring six classes, the Cardinals play in the third-smallest.

But in a 2,700-seat gym, if you weren't there for the opening girls game, you weren't getting a seat. Parents of players gained entry through a back door. One family traveled 170 miles from Clayton, Okla., for home games.

"There was always a buzz about what college coach would be there that night and who was going to be watching," Schneider said.

Coaches were watching. From Kentucky, Kansas, North Carolina. All offered scholarships, as did 50 other schools. Texting wasn't as commonplace then but the Clarkes' phone bill climbed to $400 one month.

Bob Knight, John Calipari and Tom Crean called. Knight was at Texas Tech, Crean at Marquette, Calipari at Memphis.

None landed Clarke, who chose Arkansas, where his mother's family lived. He played three seasons for the Razorbacks, but after a coaching change, he announced in August 2011 that he would transfer to Butler.

Clarke's collaborator in the mania of the era was Pawnee's 5-9 Keiton Page, a close friend who dueled him for the state scoring record. They were once junior high teammates in Yale, Okla., and called each other after their respective high school games. (Page went on to play for Oklahoma State, where he is now an assistant strength and conditioning coach).

New kid in town

Clarke faced uncertainty in his freshman year. His family moved from Denison, Texas, a month before classes began, and he joined a team loaded with seniors who had lost in the state tournament to the eventual champion. His coach was his uncle, Kelly Clarke.

Clarke has grown to 6 feet, 1/2 inch, but he was 5-6 then. He was "just like a puppy to all those kids," his father said, and he followed them everywhere. He led them, too. He averaged 20 points a game as the Cardinals went 24-4.

As his reputation grew inside the state, it did likewise on the recruiting trail. He played for Team Texas the following summer, and he was asked to play up an age group in one tournament.

Clarke scored 31 points against The Family of Detroit, stimulating an onslaught of letters, calls and texts. It was prelude. In his sophomore year, he benefited from a slick point guard, Zach Lloyd, now a defender for Dallas FC of Major League Soccer.

In a tournament championship game, Clarke was held to one 3-pointer in the first half by second-ranked Wewoka. He made 9-of-10 from the arc thereafter, sank a tying 3 as time expired in regulation, scored all of Verdigris' 10 overtime points and finished with 55 in an 86-81 victory.

When the team returned to school, the coaches did laundry until 3 a.m. while Clarke continued to shoot in a darkened gym.

"Dad, I can still feel it," he said as he shot deep into the night.

Clarke never allowed himself to lose that feel. Another assistant coach, Paul Hollon, remembers Clarke coming to the gym at 9 each night to shoot, even after hard practices.

Some of the workouts sound preposterous: 74 consecutive 3s made, 212 consecutive free throws, 97 of 100 3-pointers.

He has continued his routine at Butler, taking 500 shots each night. He was undoubtedly responsible for the coaches giving players key cards for 24-hour access to Hinkle Fieldhouse.

A vendor at the Tulsa State Fair was once a victim of Clarke's accuracy. Fairgoers had three basketball shots for $5 at a rim that Clarke noticed was oval-shaped. Flat shots would not go in. Clarke's arching ones did, though. Again and again. He won so many stuffed animals that the vendor banned him, and he tied one of them to the top of his girlfriend's car because they wouldn't all fit inside.

Teachers said Clarke taught youths a work ethic, and he made himself available to them. They imitated his fadeaway jumpshot and backpedal.

Moreover, Clarke's Christian faith -- some would call it lifestyle evangelism -- prompted peers to carry Bibles to games or write scripture on t-shirts and baseball helmets. John Treadwell, a retired cattle rancher who took Clarke fishing and coon hunting, calls him the Tim Tebow of basketball.

"He made it OK to give glory to God and not be selfish about things," said Schneider, a computer teacher.

Cheap shots, death threats

There was an ugly side to the packed arenas, record chase and recruiting hysteria.

Clarke's father caught a fan trying to give Rotnei a $100 bill. Another wanted to award $100 for every 50-point game. Even if supporters weren't trying to direct Clarke to their favorite college, cash payouts would have been a rules violation.

His coaches ordered him not to dribble two steps into the foul lane because they knew he would be clobbered. A nurse traveled with the team carrying glue, stitches and butterfly bandages for the inevitable blows he would take in the face and around his eyes.

Since his freshman year, and continuing to this day, Clarke has worn a sleeve on his left arm because a bursa sac once burst and caused swelling.

Fans in opposing gyms were hostile, especially in student sections. Some spoke vulgarities about Clarke's sister, Cassie, a volleyball and basketball star at Verdigris.

"It just angered me and, in a way, just fueled me and made me want to do better," Clarke said.

When he scored 65 at Berryhill -- every point is recorded on a YouTube video set to music -- he had to be taken out midway through the fourth quarter because play became rough and his coaches worried for Clarke's safety.

In a game at Nowata, there were taunts, technical fouls and a vandalized bus. Worse, law enforcement traced a death threat against Cassie to two Nowata boys, according to Clarke's father.Rather than press charges, the Clarkes asked the boys to come to the sheriff's office and apologize. Tears flowed from the accused and their mothers, and the incident was resolved.

On the court, Rotnei could not be unnerved. Not by junk defenses. Not by taunts. Not by All-Americans. Not by illness.

At a December tournament his junior year, he scored 38 in a 53-38 victory over Oklahoma Christian School and Blake Griffin, who has become an NBA All-Star and Olympic gold medalist.

Clarke averaged 37.6 for the season, and 46.2 in six postseason games.

Because of allergies, he had so much trouble breathing before a state quarterfinal that there was doubt he would play at all. Instead, he scored 60 against Vian, breaking the state tournament record. Vian featured top football recruits, and the linebacker guarding him was so vexed that he was ejected after two technical fouls.

Fan fervor peaked when Clarke and Page, as seniors, finally opposed each other in the Tournament of Champions at the Tulsa Fairgrounds. Both teams lost openers, so it was a consolation game and yet the main event.

On the coldest day of the year, so many fans lined up for tickets that the game was delayed by a half-hour. Clarke scored 34 for Verdigris, which lost to Pawnee, led by Page's 28.

The area final at Skiatook would have drawn a crowd anyway -- the winner advanced to state -- but Clarke was also on the verge of breaking the state career record of 3,639 points that had stood since 1989.

Assistant coach Hollon drove the team bus, and he "got chills" walking across prairie fields as he saw 5,000-some fans gathering for the occasion.

"You couldn't get in there sideways," said Treadwell, the cattleman.

Clarke did not disappoint. He scored 37 points, setting the record and leading Verdigris over Adair 70-51. Fans counted down, "seven, six, five, four, etc.," as he neared the milestone, and fans from both teams stood and applauded when he surpassed it. Clarke would finish his career with 3,758 points, edging Page's 3,709.

Starting over at Butler

Those who know Clarke said Butler has been a match, on and off the court. His closest friend is former Butler guard Ronald Nored -- now coach at Brownsburg High School -- and they have attended church together at Common Ground, 4550 N. Illinois St.

Clarke, 23, is naturally introverted. He hasn't been recognized everywhere in Indianapolis, as he was in Oklahoma and Arkansas, and conceded it was "real nice" to have such privacy. His girlfriend, Patricia Elliott, 21, who he met at Arkansas, is studying to be a dental hygienist in Bartlesville, Okla.

He has not had one of those breathtaking games as he did at Verdigris, although his long 3-pointer as time expired beat Marquette 72-71 last month and was replayed on highlights. He leads Butler with a 17.3 average and is third in the NCAA in 3-pointers per game (4.0).

His parents will be nearby for the rest of this season, living out of a duplex three blocks from campus. Conley has been a shooting coach in Springdale, Ark., and Chris is taking a leave from Fayetteville (Ark.) High School, where she was an assistant coach for the girls state volleyball champions.

Kelly Clarke, Rotnei's uncle and high school coach, said skeptics don't know what his nephew is capable of doing.

"I've been known as the crazy uncle. I invested a lot into the kid, and to see him not utilized, I'm just anxious to see how this is going to turn out," he said. "To see that I wasn't the one who was crazy."

In a basketball-crazy state, Rotnei Road has intersected Butler Way. Another highway sign might need revision.

David Woods also writes for the Indianapolis Star