Clay Matthews Sr., the patriarch of one of the NFL’s most successful family trees, died Thursday night at 88 year old.
Matthews was a Korean War veteran who was a two-way lineman for the San Francisco 49ers, playing 45 games over four seasons in the 1950s, a South Carolina native who went on to play at Georgia Tech.
Matthews was the first of three generations of family members to play in the NFL: his two oldest sons, Clay Jr. and Bruce, each played 19 years in the league. Clay Jr., a linebacker, was a first-round pick of the Cleveland Browns in 1978, spending 16 seasons in Cleveland before finishing his career with the Falcons.