School: Wissahickon
Track & Field
Favorite team: Between the Eagles and Patriots
Favorite memory competing in sports: “Winning my first track trace in the 200m dash when I was 11 years old.”
Music on iPod: “Almost everything R&B to heavy metal to workout, etc.”
Future plans: “To attend Harcum College for a year or two then either Lebanon Valley College or Keystone College”
Words to live by: “I don’t care what anyone thinks - I do what I want when I want to do it.”
One goal before turning 30: “To become a physical therapist”
One thing people don’t know about me: “I am really out in the open this year. I did not really hide anything from anybody.”
Tyrone Clayton fared quite well during his senior season on the track for Wissahickon High School. He qualified for the PIAA State Championship meet in both the 100 and 200 meters, clocked the second-fastest 200m time (21.81 seconds) in school history at league championships and led off the 4x100 relay team that recorded a 42.15, which held as the best in the state until the recent State Championships.
Some might call Clayton's senior season impressive ... exceptional ... stellar.
Those who know him well, however, prefer words such as "inspirational" or "miraculous."
"Tyrone is an amazing guy," said Trojans' track and field coach Don Betterly. "A lot of the kids didn't realize what he had to battle back from."
Clayton says he doesn't remember much about what happened, nor the weeks immediately following, but he remembers the first symptoms. They occurred while he was attending a local carnival last Fourth of July.
"I had gone on a ride, and I wasn't really feeling well," said the soft-spoken Clayton. "The carnival was over, everyone was walking home, and I just felt something weird in the right side of my body.
“From there I can't really remember. From what my mom tells me, I woke up the next morning and I said I couldn't see or walk, and I went to the hospital."
Clayton was taken to the Stroke Center at Abington Memorial Hospital, where he was diagnosed as having sustained "stroke-like symptoms."
"The other three guys (on his relay squad) probably knew," Betterly said. "The kids who came to see him in the hospital did, his brother was there every day. But I don't think a lot of the kids knew the extent. He was flat on his back. He could barely walk down the hall without help. He couldn't read, couldn't write."
Clayton said he doesn't remember much about the ensuing weeks. But as August came and his senior year approached, he does recall cementing his intentions to return to top form both in the classroom and on the track.
"During the month of August, I would look at where I was and where I needed to be to get back to school and go out for track again," he said. "That's where I slowly and progressively came back to everything.
"I had been hearing rumors that maybe I'd have to be homeschooled and miss out on track. Ever since then I'd been working hard at the gym ... saying to myself, 'I'm going to get back to the same way I was last year.'"
And with the support of his family, friends, coaches and teammates, Clayton has done just that. He capped off his final year of high school when he walked in procession with his classmates to accept his high school diploma at Wissahickon's commencement ceremony June 10. And he performed better than most could have hoped for during his final indoor and outdoor track seasons.
And perhaps most remarkably, Clayton never drew attention to his struggle to regain his form. He simply went about his business. And that, Betterly said, is part of what has made Clayton such an effective leader.
"A lot of these kids weren't aware, and they didn't notice on the track," Betterly said. "The way he raced and his track times were what they always saw Tyrone do. They knew he had been in the hospital, then they saw him walking around school and probably figured, 'Well, it couldn't have been that bad.'
"We didn't make that big of a deal of it. Tyrone was there every day and never missed practice, except when he had doctor’s checkups. Only at our team picnic, when I gave him our Coaches Award, I stood up there in front of the whole team and I told them what he went through. He's been quite an inspiration."
Clayton will head to Harcum College in the fall, where he will run on the track team, and plans to eventually head to Lebanon Valley College to major in physical therapy. He'll part ways from his twin brother, Tyreese, who will head to the University of Delaware.
"It'll be different," Tyrone said. "But he's close enough that we can visit on special occasions."
But the brothers leave a legacy behind. They were both instrumental in Wissahickon's Suburban One American Conference Championship this year, and Tyrone's efforts at the District Championships -- in which the Trojans tied for second place -- earned him a trip to the State Championships.
"It really was special to do that after what I had gone through," he said. "I placed higher in outdoor states than I ever had, and that was one of the greatest moments in my track and field career."
Clayton is proud but humble when he talks about his appearance at states. Betterly believes, though, that Clayton's modesty comes simply because Clayton never doubted he could do it ‑- that he saw the State Championships as the next logical step on the ladder.
"The biggest surprise was him qualifying for the Indoor State Championships in the 200,” Betterly said. “Making it in the outdoor meet, going in he was in the top five in the 200, so all he had to do was run what he'd done and he'd be through. The 100 is a little dicier, because there's a lot less room for error, and he was sitting around ninth, right outside the top, and he was able to make the top and make it in the 100 meters also. I just think he thought this was another progression in his career, something he was supposed to do.
"Tyrone never questioned himself, and he has a good bunch of people around him. Watching him come through and accomplish all this, and he never balked about anything. He never questioned if he was ready to do something, he just did it. Even making the state meet, it was one of those things ... he knew he was going to do it and he did it.”
And few people knew just how remarkable that accomplishment really was for the gifted runner who defied the odds.
