Clay took over the Panther's cross country and track and field program in 2010, as he enters his 13th season at the helm.
Under Clay's direction the men's track & field team won both the indoor and his second outdoor SWAC Championships in 2022. He was also named the SWAC Coach of the Year.
On May 5, 2018 the Outdoor SWAC Coach of the Year Clay led his team to a SWAC Men's Outdoor Championship, making this the fourth in the history of the program and the first in a decade.
Learning from some of the greatest track & field minds to ever walk the Prairie View A&M University campus has paid off for men’s track & field head coach Chris Clay.
“Coach Hoover Wright taught me the history of the Prairie View A&M track & field program and once you learn the history, it shapes the standards and traditions of your program,” said Clay. “Coach Clifton Gilliard taught me how to interact and motivate the student-athletes to the point where they can give me the best they can mentally and physically.”
Coach Clay captured his first SWAC Men’s Cross Country Championship in October and fourth title in school history as the Panthers topped the field in Clinton, Miss. Senior runner Sorone Batiste was named the SWAC’s top male cross country athlete as he finished first in addition to earning National Athlete of the Week by the U.S. Track & Field and Cross Country Coaches Association (USTFCCCA). Since assuming the reigns of the cross country program, Clay has developed the team into a yearly contender with no less than a third-place finish dating back to 2011.
A former track & field standout at Prairie View A&M under Coach Wright, Clay has helped reestablish the legacy while being associated with the program for 18 years as either a student-athlete, assistant coach or head coach. As a student-athlete, Clay helped Prairie View A&M win its first two SWAC Indoor Track & Field Championships in 1998 and 2000 while also winning a pair of outdoor titles in 1999 and 2000.
While serving as an assistant coach in 2005 and 2006, Clay helped coach the Panthers to their first two cross country championships in school history in addition to a pair of indoor championships in 2007 and 2008 along with an outdoor title in the spring of 2008. While serving as head coach in 2013, Clay once again brought home the hardware with an indoor championship while also guiding multiple participants to either the NCAA National or Regional Championships.
Priding himself on being a student of track & field, Clay says “once you become a student, you become self-disciplined, motivated and dedicated to your sport.” That mantra holds true as Clay has balanced a full teaching workload as a professor in the PVAMU Department of Health & Human Performance while also building a championship level track & field program which recently had 14 student-athletes named to the SWAC All-Academic Team.
Clay and his wife Shandra, a fellow PVAMU alumnus, has two children; Christopher and Cydney. Clay is a member of Phi Beta Sigma Fraternity, Inc. and received both his Bachelor’s Degree in Human Performance in 2001 and a Master’s Degree in Educational Administration in 2003 from PVAMU.
