Amid the hype of Wednesday’s national signing day, the Claytor family of Snellville will keep a steady gaze on a cold reality: No matter what happens with coaches, your team or your body, hold on to the promise of your education.
This year is youngest son Tyler’s turn. A 6-foot-3, 270-pound lineman for Shiloh High School, he will sign with William and Mary. Five years ago, the same spotlight shone on his 6-6, 285-pound brother Nick, who decided on Georgia Tech.
The greatest influence in the Claytor pipeline and priorities is single mom Lisa, a 5-foot-9 hurdler and heptathlete. She used her own athletic and personal struggles to shape her sons’ academic habits and football choices.
Signing day is a milestone in a time period in which she attained her master’s degree in education last fall and her sons will graduate in May. “She is always a week or a step ahead of us,” Tyler Claytor said.
In 1981, she was where he is today and turned down a track scholarship offer from Clemson to take one at Ohio University, in her home state. “I just wanted to run and stay home,” she said.
In college, injuries ended her opportunities to compete. She transferred, briefly married and left before graduation as a single mom. “I worked at The Limited as a cashier, and on the weekend as a waitress at Denny’s,” she said. “When I realized how important that bachelor degree was, that’s when I started letting go of the sports idea.”
While working and caring for both boys, she pushed to get her college degree in communications in 1992. They moved to Atlanta in 1995, and her sons’ athletic DNA blossomed.
Nick’s dad (his mom’s first ex-husband) is 6-foot-8 Von Davey, who played basketball at Bowling Green. Tyler’s dad (her second ex) is Truman Claytor, a 6-3 shooting guard who had helped Kentucky win the 1978 NCAA title. The men stay in touch with their sons from their respective homes in Maryland and Ohio.
With boys who quickly outsized her, she demanded respect like a coach does.
“You can’t skip practice because I’m not paying for college,” she would yell at them when they were slow to put on their cleats.
“You are going to get tired before I get tired,” she promised whenever they challenged her authority.
And if they still pushed back? “I brought you into this world,” she would remind them, “and I will take you out.”
She challenged Tyler, 17, to raise his game in the classroom.
“I didn’t want to go into the International Baccalaureate program my freshman year [at his previous school, North Atlanta High School], but I got in,” he said of his mother’s influence. “I thought of myself as smart because you don’t get in that for nothing.”
When he transferred to Shiloh, he needed only 1 1/2 classes to graduate. His 3.3 grade-point average in a tough curriculum “made me not afraid of taking the challenge of William and Mary,” he said.
“I love challenges, and I know that’s a place where I’m going to be academically pushed to the limit.”
William and Mary’s NFL alumni include Giants linebacker Adrian Tracy, Cowboys tackle Sean Lissemore and Steelers coach Mike Tomlin. Coach Jimmye Laycock has been there more than 30 years. “They’re not going to be shuffling around,” Tyler Claytor said, looking at his big brother.
At 22, Nick Claytor knows the glory of signing day can turn into insecurity.
A 320-pound offensive lineman recruited to Tech by then-coach Chan Gailey, Claytor had to re-sculpt himself when Paul Johnson took over and installed the spread-option offense. “Running and celery,” Nick Claytor recalled of a regimen that dropped 50 pounds.
Last year as a junior, Claytor left Tech to enter the NFL draft. Waiting would not improve his draft standing; leaving might give him time to gain technique and girth for pro football.
“We had a big family meeting about that,” said Lisa Claytor, who affirmed his choice after he promised to get his diploma.
After no team picked him and then no teams played because of the lockout, Nick Claytor ended up with the Hamilton Tiger-Cats of the Canadian Football League. This off-season, he is wrapping up the final two classes for his degree in business management — strategic management and earth and atmospheric science. He’ll graduate from Tech on May 5. He’s also interning at an executive search firm before returning to pro football in June.
Nick Claytor remembered being a kid, when his mom put him on first base and threw baseballs as hard as she could at him. “There isn’t much that can be thrown at me that I can’t overcome,” he said.
In her 40s, Lisa Claytor put on pads herself, with the Atlanta XPlosion and Atlanta Leopards women’s football teams. “I wanted them to see that there is no excuse for not working hard,” she said.
On the sideline was Tyler, not yet a teenager, “freezing in a sleeping bag and lawn chair watching her practice,” he said. “Then when I started playing football, I would see her running on the track during practice and working out.”
With a master’s degree in teaching, which she earned online from National University, Lisa Claytor is looking for a job as a special-education teacher. Her choices and challenges have led her to this conclusion about life, regardless of football.
“I say this to other single moms of boys, ‘You are going to have struggles. Stay consistent and implement discipline. You can raise successful young men no matter where you live or how much money you have.’”
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