ORLANDO, Fla. – A family man, author, former basketball coach and Florida A&M University Hall of Famer walked into a bar.
But the bartender wouldn’t see four different people. They would just greet Mickey Clayton, all of the above.
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This week on the “Black Men Sundays,” it’s a throwback classic to May 2022 when Clayton and host Corie Murray discussed finances, health advice and the FAMU legend’s outlook on the positive impact of historically Black colleges and universities.
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“When you at an HBCU, we know that you are the future. We want you to be successful because you have to carry the banner on, and you have to carry the banner on further than what we did. It’s like being a coach. My daughter has always said ‘Daddy, how can you talk to people that you don’t even know like you talk to ‘em?’ I said ‘A lot of times, people know and almost pick up that you a coach or former coach, they respond differently when a coach talks,” Clayton said. “They would ask, ‘Dad, did you know them?’ I said ‘No.’ ‘And why would you do that?’ I said, ‘Because a lot of times, that one word of encouragement to let somebody know that they’re doing the right thing is very important.’”
Clayton founded INSiiGHTS TV, a network now on ROKU that serves to elevate creative works, HBCU and high school sports, interesting stories and discussions on sports topics.
“We thought that the high school sports in the area were not getting the publicity that the student athletes, the teams or the schools deserve, and so we kind of concentrated, we were able to find a niche. Not a lot of people want to do it, but we were on TV for four years until COVID-19 hit,” Clayton said. “In fact, we went out to FAMU High, one of their young men just signed his scholarship to go to Weber and he personally requested that we come out, so we actually livestreamed that on Instagram, we put the whole 40-minute program from FAMU High up there, but it’s all about the kids. Hashtag, ‘It’s all about the kids.’ So we feel pretty good with what we’ve done with the sports and we branch out with INSiiGHTS Magazine, we got MicknRick ... we try to keep it entertaining.”
Murray and Clayton’s conversation also covered health, as the former FAMU Men’s and Women’s Basketball coach discussed lessons learned in some of life’s more difficult chapters.
“I come from a family where my dad didn’t talk about what was wrong with him. On the other side, my mother did all the time, it was always ‘Woe is me,’ and it was always ‘I’m on my deathbed, and I need all my sons around me, this the last time I’m gonna have surgery, I might not make it,’ and we probably heard that, oh, 10, 12 times over four or five years,” Clayton said. “Personally, for me, I don’t share because I know what my mother put me through, so I don’t want to put my family through it if I was in that situation because I don’t want to play with their emotions. I’m not saying I’m right with that because my daughters and my wife are mad, they don’t agree with it, I like to tell them where I am in terms of what the doctor is saying, now that I go on a whole lot more now than I did when I was younger. Genetics plays a tremendous part, I don’t know what my mother had or my father had because they never shared it and never talked about it.”
Hear the full interview and more in Season 2, Episode 17 of “Black Men Sundays.”
Black Men Sundays talks about building generational wealth. Check out every episode in the media player below.