TUSCALOOSA – Clay is sticky.
A double entendre is always fun.
Clay, in its purest form, is a sticky soil. How fitting is it, then, that this year’s Class 6A state champion, Clay-Chalkville High School, had so many contributors from the past, that so many folks have stuck?
It was obvious before Clay-Chalkville beat Saraland 31-28 in an all-time classic Alabama High School Athletic Association Class 6A state championship at Bryant-Denny Stadium in Tuscaloosa. It was clear in the Class 6A semifinals against Parker at Cougar Stadium the week prior. The bleachers were full, and the concrete pathways between the bleachers and sidelines were filled three and four rows deep. Some fans held in their need to use the restroom until they left for home.
One of those who didn’t leave his position was Matthew Calvert, a former UAB pitcher who prepped at Clay-Chalkville and started chants of a certain journalist’s name when he was leading the Cougars’ student section. After Clay-Chalkville dominated Parker 38-13, Calvert spoke with former classmates, coaches, and friends on the field. His son ran all over the turf.
That started the floodgates of memories from bygone days. Former Cougars running back Terelle West, injured during the playoff run to the 2014 state championship with a torn ACL, walked up to shake hands. Former Clay-Chalkville head coach Jerry Hood, now the head man at Leeds High School, toted chairs from the sidelines back to the fieldhouse, passing under a banner that names the field after him. Offensive coordinator Stuart Floyd, who also quarterbacked Clay-Chalkville to its first state championship in 1999, had made his way down from the press box, just as he did in 2014. Head coach Drew Gilmer spoke with media members after the game, and while he did not have to do so in 2014, he was still here, an assistant on staff. Wide receivers coach Justin Burdette was there, too, a fixture on the 2011 team that won all 10 games it played but was forced to forfeit nine of them and ultimately cast out of the Class 6A playoffs that it would have cakewalked through to at least the semifinals.
In the 2023 Class 6A title game, Clay-Chalkville took a 31-28 lead on Antone Ellison’s 26-yard field goal with 2:27 to play in the fourth quarter. Saraland then drove 79 yards in 11 plays to set up fourth-and-5 at the Cougars’ 10-yard line. Saraland decided to go for the win instead of playing for overtime. Saraland quarterback K.J. Lacey, a Texas commit, bolted up the middle but Clay-Chalkville linebacker DJ Barber, an Auburn commit, got him to the ground at the 1-yard line.
Hood hung back and let the current team and staff celebrate, though his smile was obvious. A 2014 assistant-turned-realtor who sponsors as much Clay-Chalkville football as he can, Bret Rogers, was on the sidelines, too. Mayor Charles Webster wore the same sidelines smile in 2023 as he did almost a decade ago.
“We know this football thing is so much more than winning the state championship for us,” Hood said in 2014.
Clay-Chalkville quarterback Jaylen Mbakwe, an Alabama commit who will play defensive back in college, ran the ball 26 times for 130 yards and three touchdowns in the 2023 state title game. He completed 9-of-17 passes for 152 yards and a touchdown to Mississippi State commit Mario Craver. Mbakwe, who approached the coaching staff before the season about quarterbacking his senior year, was named most valuable player. Mbakwe had left the Class 6A semifinal game against Parker in the second quarter with a concussion on an obvious late hit out of bounds. He was asked if his high school career would end in a way other than a blue map. His eyebrows raised and he answered emphatically.
“No,” he said. “I was most definitely going to play this week. I was going to get this W no matter what it took.”
As Saraland marched toward what looked like a game-tying field goal or game-winning score, Burdette sat on the end of a cold bench and gripped his head in his hands. He couldn’t watch. Offensive coaches relayed through their headsets what was happening on the field.
“Winning with these guys and winning with my school makes this even more special,” Burdette said. “There are not many people that know what it feels like to win it for their school. It’s special to win one with my former coaches Floyd and Gilmer also. Been around those guys for more than half of my life. After leaving Clay for other schools, I quickly realized where I need to be. I will never leave Clay again. This is my home, and I am thankful the administration lets me be a part of this place. That’s why I was so nervous. I wanted it bad for these kids. They work like nobody else works, and this is why we are champions.”
Burdette was a key cog in that storybook 2011 season that ended in the Alabama Supreme Court ruling 7-2 to keep Clay-Chalkville out of the Class 6A playoffs. The Cougars finished with one official win that season, a back-and-forth offensive shootout at Spain Park High School in the regular season finale, during which Burdette caught three touchdown passes and even blew a kiss to the television cameras, knowing his then-imprisoned father was watching.
“Just thankful that it’s come back around full circle,” said Burdette, who earned his first state title as a player or coach this year. “Being able to win a ring with Floyd and Gilmer, who I was coached by, and then the rest of the staff that I’ve coached with before, especially on the best team Clay-Chalkville has ever seen. I really don’t know what to say. I love this school and these kids.”
Gilmer was the wide receivers coach when Burdette played. Floyd was the offensive coordinator. This season, they all wore headsets as coaches for the same team. And it seemed like it wasn’t meant to happen. Burdette wasn’t coaching a year ago. Early last season, he was asked to “hang around” and by the middle of the season he was helping the wide receivers. This year, he was rehired at the school to teach history.
“One thing led to another and by Week 1 I was back on the varsity sideline with the receivers,” he said. “It’s always funny how you think you have plans for your life but the Lord laughs and has other plans. I am thankful for His plan because this was the most fun year of coaching that I have had.”
Floyd’s return to Clay-Chalkville this season is just as inspiring. He had been gone for seven years, off to Hewitt-Trussville after the 2016 season when Hood retired, and Gilmer was named head coach. Floyd was the Huskies’ tight ends coach. He then spent time at Mortimer Jordan and Springville. In those seven years away, Floyd was in the same Sunday school class as Gilmer. Not long after the Cougars lost 7-6 to Parker in the first round of the 2022 Class 6A playoffs, Gilmer leaned over to Floyd during Sunday school and asked him if he would be interested in returning to Clay-Chalkville.
“It’s not really about my story, but just how God uses people,” Floyd said. “He can make things good out of bad situations.”
Floyd has admitted in the past – on a truck tailgate with a certain reporter – and did again this week that he didn’t quite know the importance of the job he had when he left it.
“I knew it was a good job,” he said. “But I didn't have any perspective, you know, of like, just how prominent of a position I had, an offensive coordinator at a really, really good 6A high school that has a chance to win every year. I didn't value that at all.”
He values it now. This time last year, he was calling plays for a team that posted a 1-9 record and averaged 19.7 points per game. And while it sounds like a slight at Springville, it’s really not. A buddy, Jon Clements, is the head coach there, and Gilmer is the head coach at Clay-Chalkville. It’s not about just results on the field, but relationships and belief in friends. Gilmer knew what Floyd had done in the past. He knew his mind.
“Now, I know what that job is,” Floyd said. “There are thousands of guys that would love to have that job, you know?”
Having a five-star prospect like Mbakwe helps, of course. The senior finished the 2023 season completing 140-of-196 passes for 2,007 yards and 20 touchdowns. He also rushed 148 times for 1,065 yards and 23 more scores.
The 2014 power-read play that put Clay-Chalkville ahead for good against Saraland in the Class 6A state championship game – which Tyrell Pigrome housed from 48 yards with 2:10 to play – was called five or six times in the 2023 edition. Only this time, Mbakwe handed it off.
“They were just sitting there waiting on Jaylen, and he would give it,” Floyd said. “But they didn’t have a perimeter player for the stretch guy.”
It partially allowed Taurus Chambers and Aaron Osley to combine for 15 carries for 67 yards.
So does having Oregon commit JacQawn McRoy on the offensive line, as well as center Brady Phillips and others. So does having Craver on the outside. So does having Chambers and Osley providing a 1-2 punch in the backfield. So does having Barber rack up more than 130 tackles in one season. Simply put, this team had dudes that provided for Clay-Chalkville. But they know Clay-Chalkville has returned that favor.
“The Clay community means a lot to me,” Mbakwe said following the state championship as a light rain fell. “I do a lot for the community and for the school and the people around the school, so I just wanted to bring one back and have a celebration. I can’t say enough about the Clay community. I love it.”
Mbakwe didn’t play in that 2022 playoff loss to Parker a season ago. Craver, who hauled in six passes for 142 yards and a 40-yard touchdown in the state championship, remembered.
“It means a lot [to win the state title],” he said in the postgame press conference. “We let them down last year. We’ve just been working ever since February to give back to our community and let them know that we’ve got their back.”
As Craver said those words, McRoy nodded almost aggressively. So did Barber. Craver’s words clearly meant something to them.
As much as the focus was on Mbakwe and Saraland five-star receiver Ryan Williams, also an Alabama commit, the Auburn commit Barber is who had the final show-stopping – and game-stopping – play. He leaped at Lacey, and his force knocked the Texas commit down four feet shy of the end zone as time expired.
[WATCH: Highlights from the 2023 Class 6A state championship game]
“It’s great to know that you’re giving back to your community in terms of bringing another state championship,” Barber said. “You can inspire and motivate the younger classes coming up and show them that if you work hard and do what you’re supposed to do, come to work hard every day, you can win a state championship.”
Clay-Chalkville now has four state championships in program history since 1996, all in different venues. In 1999, the Cougars won at Legion Field when Floyd was the quarterback, a 30-27 overtime win over Lee-Montgomery. In 2014, the Cougars edged Saraland 36-31 in Jordan Hare Stadium. In 2021, it was a 46-42 shootout over Hueytown in the new Protective Stadium. This year, it was Bryant-Denny Stadium.
“We couldn’t ask for more out of our coaches, out of our players, out of our fans, out of our community, everything,” Gilmer said. “Just extremely blessed to be a part of it.”
In the immediate aftermath of the monumental win, Floyd’s iPhone had received 156 text messages. There were also numerous calls and FaceTime requests, many of which he returned on the bus ride home to Clay.
Four days after the win, Floyd appeared on a Powerhouse Sports live show on Twitter and Facebook. He quickly explained what the phrase “Big Clay,” which has been posted a lot lately, including that same day when Oregon head coach Dan Lanning visited the school, means.
“The irony is that Clay is actually a small place that just accomplishes big things,” he said.
Gary Lloyd is a freelance journalist and author in Alabama.
The City of Clay and CCHS feeder pattern are truly one and the same. The city has supported the schools financially since 2012even paying for half the cost of the first artificial turf field in Jefcoed.
Thank you Gary for recognizing the impact that our schools have on our community. I’m sure as long as Mayor Webster is in office the schools will flourish.