Braddock’s Clayton still going strong, even at 64
The NFL first took note of John Clayton during a Steelers playoff game in 1972 when fans and team officials crammed near him in the Three Rivers Stadium auxiliary press box went out of their minds cheering what would become the Immaculate Reception right under their noses.
Clayton, a Churchill High School senior writing for the St. Mary’s Daily Press (long story), calmly turned to an NFL official and asked if he could see a replay because he thought Franco Harris had just made an illegal catch.
That inquiry by Clayton would not have been popular among many around him, but then he never let popularity stand in the way of doing his job, whether it was for the St. Mary’s Daily Press, the Pittsburgh Press, ESPN or even spinning records while a Duquesne University student at WLLA in Braddock.
Braddockis where he was raised through age 13 and that city’s mayor, John Fetterman, last month proclaimed John Clayton Day and the 11 “whereases” to go with it. Long ago Clayton moved to Seattle, where he staked his claim and fame in the world of ESPN, but his heart remains in Pittsburgh. He returned home not only for John Clayton Day but to participate in Duquesne’s symposium on Dan Rooney and serve as the lone guest of a journalism symposium at Point Park University, moderated by Bob Pompeani.
Having just turned 64, Clayton is as busy as ever. ESPN, his employer for 20 years, will pay him through 2020 even though he was part of the large downsizing the network went through last year. He works full time for 50,000-watt KIRO in Seattle, talking up a daily sports show six days a week. He also is that station’s sideline reporter for the opposing team during Seattle Seahawks games. How long will he keep going? “Until they plant me, I guess. I love this stuff. What I love about it is there’s so much more stuff we didn’t have access to years ago and now we do — the salary information, NFL Game Rewind where you can watch coaches tape. There’s so much information and analytical stuff, it’s phenomenal.
“That energizes me. I feel like a student still learning because you pick up all this stuff. I get excited about the little things. I have a data base that keeps track of every salary, the height and weight of all the players in the league. I put together a program on a worksheet for the top 51 players so I have an up to the minute salary cap sheet of every team in the league.”
He was the Energizer bunny long before the ad was born. He covered the Steelers while a high school student, then worked about 25 different jobs during his Duquesne University days — radio, magazines, newspapers, even playing big band records in Shaler. He covered the Steelers first Super Bowl in 1974 in New Orleans. The Pittsburgh Press hired him full time during his senior year.
He went on to cover Penn State for a year, then the Steelers and then the NFL. He sought further