About Clay…

Clay arrived at the Transcript in 1997 after sports editor stints at The Woodward News and The Daily Ardmoreite.

A native Oklahoman, he grew up in Oklahoma City, where he graduated from Bishop McGuinness before attending Trinity University in San Antonio. He sometimes describes his field of choice as the refuge of a failed jock, which is true but only to a point.

More than watching the athletes of his youth pass him by everywhere but the links (he was passed by there, too, only he held on long enough to play high school and some very small college golf), Clay decided he simply wasn’t cut out for regular work. Writing sports thus became the refuge of one with little interest in doing much else.

Good thing it worked out. Clay has won the Associated Press statewide award for sports columns four different times, the AP award for spot sports reporting four times and the AP award for sports features and personal columns once. Writing aside, he has won the AP award for headlines, a category not limited to sports, five different times, and the AP award for non-page one layout three different times.

Clay has one daughter, Harper, 13, of whom he’s quick to point out is far more accomplished than he ever was at her age in all things but useless sports and pop culture trivia.

Clay sometimes dreams still of making it big on the golf course or perhaps the poker table and remains unsure why he’s drawn to the utterly impossible, like living the good life on journalism pay.

At least he enjoys his work.