Longtime Oregon defensive coach Don Pellum has had many life chats with his players over his decades of coaching. In the locker room, he’s been a sounding board for everything: football, relationships, career path, you name it. So when one of his star pupils, Michael Clay, was getting near the end of college, Pellum kept pitching Clay on a grand vision to try to become the CEO of a major corporation one day.
“Mike had really good teaching skills, he was very smart, very personable, so I said, ‘Mike, you should go be the leader of a big ol’ business, man.