By Billy Woods

WM School District

West Memphis’ new boys basketball coach is no stranger to the Blue Devil program.

On Monday, the West Memphis School District approved the hiring of Irving Clay as the new Blue Devil head coach. Clay succeeds Marcus Brown, who was the head coach the previous four years and who left the program last week to become a new assistant coach at Murray State University.

Clay, a Crittenden County native, has coached at Earle, Turrell and Marion. Clay won back to back state championships at Turrell in 1999 and 2000. He was head coach at Turrell and Marion for 14 years apiece.

But his roots run Blue Devil deep.

His children played basketball for WMHS in the 1990s. Renaldo was a starting forward for the Blue Devil state championship team of 1997 and sister April was also a starter on some strong Lady Devil teams in the late 1990s.

“I am fully familiar with the Blue Devil brand,” Clay said with a smile. “I’m so excited to be here, but I know I’ve got to bring a product.”

The 66-year-old Clay takes over a program that was 12-12 last season, but which has gone 92-26 the last four years with two conference championships, two state title game appearances and one state championship.

He has one returning starter in senior Kam Barnes, but there is a solid nucleus coming from the local junior highs and even more talent that will be returning to its respective junior highs in 2021-22.

“I haven’t met with the players yet, but I understand we have some talent on the way,” said Clay.

Clay is just the fourth coach for the boys program in the last 51 years.

“To get into that particular category with the great Bill Terwilliger, Larry Bray and Marcus Brown, I’m just blown away,” said Clay. "Those are some large shoes to fill. I’m sure there would have been many coaches around Arkansas who would have loved to have this job. I feel like this is the No. 1 coaching job in Arkansas, because has any other school in the state gone 60-0 before?

“That’s impressive enough in itself because when you drive down Broadway you see that sign in front of the school that says 60-0. I’m excited to be a part of it all.”

Clay said his basketball philosophy starts with fierce, trapping defense. On offense, he says, it’ll be an inside-out attack.

“I think if you play good defense, you’ll be in most basketball games,” he said. “Offensively, I believe in playing inside-out, bringing the ball into the post and the post evaluates what he’s got and then being able to kick the ball out to the perimeter. I like to run offenses that the kids enjoy playing.”

The rest of the Blue Devil coaching staff from the last three years will stay in place. It includes assistants Alvin Hawkins, Zeb Wells and Curtis Washington, Sr.

“I’ve been all over Crittenden County coaching basketball in my career,” said Clay. “At one time Crittenden County was the mecca of high school basketball in Arkansas. You had West Memphis, Turrell, Crawfordsville, Hughes and Earle all at the top of their respective classifications. At that time basketball was on the minds of everybody. You see people at Walmart and all they want to talk about is basketball. It was almost like a carnival atmosphere.”

Clay said he will make teaching the game as simple as possible.

“It’s still all about dribbling, passing and shooting,” he said. “Styles change along the way, but those things are still the same. You have to adapt to the change, too. Playing tough defense night in and night out is also part of it”