Jack Clayton

C Is for Coach Clayton and Class

Jack Clayton started his coaching career at Bossier High School in 1936. In the next 31 years he carved out an outstanding record of success on the field. He also had what one admirer termed "a positive impact" on countless thousands of players, opponents and associates he  encountered on and off the field. He is remembered by all as "a class act."

A graduate of Northwestern State University, then known as Louisiana Normal School,  Coach Clayton capped his football coaching career by guiding the 1966 NSU team to a perfect 9-0 record, the first perfect season at the school since 1939, and to a No. 1 national ranking in the National  Association  of  Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA).

In his 10 years as football coach, the Demons won outright Gulf States Conference titles in 1962 and 1966 and shared the league crowns in 1957 and 1958. He finished his career by coaching the Demons to the GSC baseball championship in 1967. That year marked the first for an NSU athletic team to compete in NCAA postseason play.

Coach Clayton retired in 1968 after being named GSC Coach of the Year in his last football season and in his final baseball season.

Before going home to coach his alma mater in 1957, the young Clayton guided basketball at  Centenary College (1946-47) and was the head football coach at Western Kentucky University (1948-57). He won four conference championships in a nine-year span at WKU. His 1952 team was 9-1 and played in the school's first bowl game.

Coach Clayton helped develop 10 Little All Americas. His players who starred in professional football include Al Dodd, Jackie Smith, Charlie Hennigan and Charlie Tolar. Hennigan, Smith and Tolar are members of the Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame. Hennigan remembers Clayton as an administrator who surrounded himself with good coaches. Hennigan said things he learned from Clayton and his Northwestern coaches go much deeper than football. "The principles I learned under Coach Clayton are what you need to succeed in life, not just on the field. I was proud to call him a friend."

Coach Clayton is a member of the Halls of Fame at both NSU and Western Kentucky and the Graduate N-Club Hall of Fame. In 1999, NSU dedicated the Jack Clayton Plaza in its athletic complex and began a memorial scholarship in his honor.

After he left coaching, Coach Clayton returned to Bossier Parish where he  built the Eastwood Golf Course in Haughton. He served on the Bossier Parish School Board for 14 years until his death in 1997.

Another monument to his work in sports is the Bossier Invitational Basketball Tournament, which he started while coaching at Bossier High. It is Shreveport-Bossier’s oldest continuing tournament. But his legion of friends probably remember him best for his easy smile, his good nature and the class which he exhibited in a life of accomplishments.