Clay Matthews, Sr.
| No. 83 | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Position: | Offensive tackle | ||
| Personal information | |||
| Date of birth: | August 1, 1928 | ||
| Place of birth: | Charleston, South Carolina | ||
| Height: | 6 ft 3 in (1.91 m) | ||
| Weight: | 219 lb (99 kg) | ||
| Career information | |||
| High school: | Charleston (SC) | ||
| College: | Georgia Tech | ||
| NFL draft: | 1949 / Round: 25 / Pick: 247 | ||
| Career history | |||
| Career NFL statistics | |||
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William Clay Matthews, Sr. (born August 1, 1928) is a former American football offensive tackle and patriarch of a family of professional players. Matthews played for four seasons with the San Francisco 49ers of the NFL, the first in 1950. His career was interrupted by the Korean War, and Matthews became a paratrooper for the Army’s 82nd Airborne Division. In 1953, he returned to the 49ers for three more seasons. He played college football at Georgia Tech and was selected in the 25th round of the 1949 NFL Draft by the Los Angeles Rams, but never played for them.
After playing football, Clay Sr. had a successful business career, culminating in the 1980s as the president of Pertec Peripherals Corporation of Chatsworth, CA, a manufacturer of magnetic tape and disk drives for computers. While president Clay held quarterly management dinner meetings where he would give a presentation on an aspect of business management. Two of his more memorable observations were "In business, cash is everything. I've seen a lot of businesses that were profitable as heck, but come Friday they couldn't make their payroll. They were out of business. I've seen a business losing a million dollars a month, but they had $25 million in the bank, they were in great shape." And, "There are fundamentally two types of businesses, those who sell stock for a living, and those who sell products for a living. If you're selling stock for a living and a couple of your guys have an idea over lunch, you immediately issue a press release of your great new business opportunity. If you're selling products for a living, you don't announce anything until it's ready to ship. If you announce too soon, only bad things can happen: you can stop the sales of existing products as people wait for the improved version, cutting off your cash flow. You can miss your deadlines and suffer blows to your reputation or perhaps even sales contract penalties. Or you might even find you can't finish the product, and now you look really bad."
His father, Matty Matthews, coached boxing, baseball, and track at The Citadel in Charleston, South Carolina.[1]
He is the father of Pro Bowler Clay Matthews, Jr. and Pro Football Hall of Famer Bruce Matthews, as well as the grandfather of Green Bay Packers linebacker Clay Matthews III, Kevin Matthews (played center with the Carolina Panthers), Jake Matthews (currently plays tackle on the Atlanta Falcons) and linebacker Casey Matthews of the Minnesota Vikings.[1]
He resides with his wife in Charleston, South Carolina.
The Matthews football dynasty family tree:
- H. L. Matthews
- Clay Matthews, Sr.
References
- 1 2 Gene Sapakoff (February 21, 2011). "Charleston's first family of football". Post and Courier (Charleston, SC). Retrieved February 17, 2013.