Coach Clayton
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Floyd Clayton or Harry Clayton is a fictional character, an African American coach of the Archie Comics universe. He is Chuck Clayton's father. He first appeared in Archie at Riverdale High #14.
| Coach Floyd Clayton | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
||||||||||||
Coach Clayton is a physical education teacher at Riverdale High School who believes in practicing and experimenting with various methods for teaching students. He is also very open and warm, which has led many in the student body to seek out his advice as well as tell him about their problems. Unlike his fellow phys-ed teacher Coach Kleats, he is in excellent physical condition -- although both men are very good athletes. He coaches the school's basketball and wrestling teams. In the late-1990s, he began to work beyond physical education, and also taught a history class.
Coach Clayton's first name is either Floyd or Harry, as he's been called Floyd many times by faculty in regular digest stories. The name was created in his early appearances, and used for some time afterwards. However, in some later comics, such as the Faculty Funnies mini-series where Mr. Weatherbee, Mr. Flutesnoot, Miss Grundy and Coach Clayton were secretly superheroes who all possessed super powers, Clayton was referred to as Harry. In still more recent appearances, such as Tales from Riverdale #1, his name is still Harry.
During one story, shown in Archie's Pals 'n'Gals Double Digest #120, Harry was recouperating from a fever; and at first, Coach Kleats, who was more a football coach, was leading the basketball team, and were getting defeated. Then Alice, his wife, decided to take over the coaching duties, which in the second half brought Riverdale to tie score and to overtime. With Archie scoring the winning basket, and bringing the team to victory, they led Mrs. Clayton out, on their shoulders. Harry recouperated well and returned to work, more out of fear that Alice would permanently take over his coaching duties than anything.
