Willie James Clay (born September 5, 1970) is a former

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...

safety Safety is the state of being "safe", the condition of being protected from harm or other danger. Safety can also refer to risk management, the control of recognized hazards in order to achieve an acceptable level of risk. Meanings There are ...

in the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...

(NFL) for the

Detroit Lions The Detroit Lions are a professional American football team based in Detroit. The Lions compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the National Football Conference (NFC) North Division. The team play their home games at Ford ...

New England Patriots The New England Patriots are a professional American football team based in the Greater Boston area. They compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member club of the league's American Football Conference (AFC) AFC East, East divisio ...

, and

New Orleans Saints The New Orleans Saints are a professional American football team based in New Orleans. The Saints compete in the National Football League (NFL) as a member of the league's National Football Conference (NFC) South division. Since 1975, the te ...

. He was drafted in the eighth round of the 1992 NFL Draft by the Detroit Lions. Clay attended Linsly High School in

Wheeling, West Virginia Wheeling is a city in the U.S. state of West Virginia. Located almost entirely in Ohio County, of which it is the county seat, it lies along the Ohio River in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains and also contains a tiny portion extending ...

where he earned twelve

varsity letters A varsity letter (or monogram) is an award earned in the United States for excellence in school activities. A varsity letter signifies that its recipient was a qualified varsity team member, awarded after a certain standard was met. Description ...

playing

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

basketball Basketball is a team sport in which two teams, most commonly of five players each, opposing one another on a rectangular Basketball court, court, compete with the primary objective of #Shooting, shooting a basketball (ball), basketball (appr ...

, and

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding tea ...

. While in college at

Georgia Tech The Georgia Institute of Technology, commonly referred to as Georgia Tech or, in the state of Georgia, as Tech or The Institute, is a public research university and institute of technology in Atlanta, Georgia. Established in 1885, it is part of ...

, he made 16 career

interception In ball-playing competitive team sports, an interception or pick is a move by a player involving a pass of the ball—whether by foot or hand, depending on the rules of the sport—in which the ball is intended for a player of the same team b ...

s to break the school record (formerly 14)Georgia Tech Football Individual Career Leaders
".

. Retrieved on January 25, 2008. and was part of the

1990 Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets football team The 1990 Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets football team represented the Georgia Institute of Technology in the 1990 NCAA Division I-A football season. The Jackets posted an undefeated 11–0–1 record. For the season the Yellow Jackets offense sc ...

that won the NCAA national championship. He is a member of the New England Patriots 1990s All-Decade Team. Clay is the nephew of Dwight Clay who was a basketball player for the University of Notre Dame. Dwight Clay was nicknamed "The Iceman" and is famous for hitting the game winning jump shot that ended UCLA's NCAA all-time record 88-game winning streak on January 19, 1974. His nickname was "Big Play" Willie Clay and his interception against Jacksonville in the AFC Championship sent New England to its second Super Bowl in team history in 1997.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Clay, Willie 1970 births Living people American football cornerbacks American football safeties Detroit Lions players Georgia Tech Yellow Jackets football players New England Patriots players New Orleans Saints players Linsly School alumni Players of American football from Pittsburgh