Two summers ago, I interned with the Philadelphia Eagles, working as a writer for the team’s official Web site. I was a neophyte reporter then, still in awe of the millionaires I was interviewing on a daily basis.

Two or three weeks into my internship, I met Donovan McNabb for the first time. The Syracuse legend was hosting an offseason media shindig at a Philadelphia-area country club. I was sitting at a table with some of the team’s beat writers when McNabb walked in, big as life, clad in a brown sweater and khakis. He walked over to my table and sat down directly across from me.

He greeted the gray-haired writers at the table. I was the only face he didn’t recognize. One of my bosses sitting there quickly introduced me.

‘This is our new intern,’ he said. ‘He’s from Syracuse. His name’s John Clayton.’

McNabb was taken aback momentarily. He looked at me. ‘What did you say your name was?’

I must have looked so sheepish sitting there, as I reached out to shake his outstretched hand. ‘Umm, John Clayton,’ I replied.

He shook his head and let out a chuckle. Everyone else at the table laughed, too.

I’ve gotten used to this sort of occurrence. All my life I’ve been the ‘other’ John Clayton. The ‘real’ John Clayton, in case you didn’t know, is ESPN’s renowned, NFL über-reporter.

John Clayton was a fixture for the people like me who grew up watching the same, one-hour loop of SportsCenter three times every weekend morning. He was the nerdy-looking, spectacle-wearing guy who seemed to break every big story. The guy who was elected into the writers’ wing of the Pro Football Hall of Fame in 2007.

To summarize, the real John Clayton is kind of a big deal. If you’re an NFL fan, you know who he is.

Not surprisingly, the joking references have followed me ever since I can remember. When I was a freshman on my high school baseball team, my teammates called me ‘ESPN.’ Around that time, I perfected my impression of his ESPN signoff. I’m John Clayton (pause) E-S (pause) P-N. I was pretty good at it, too.

Back then I had no inkling that I would go into sports writing. Kinesiology or sports management, maybe. In any of those normal careers, I would have escaped the incessant ribbing about my semi-famous name. Or at least brushed them aside.

Naturally, I chose to become a sports writer.

I did so, knowing I’d be interviewing and writing for an audience of people for whom John Clayton was already a household name. I can’t count the number of times I’ve interviewed somebody and been greeted with, ‘Wait, John Clayton? Like the ESPN guy?’ At both my summer internships, I would get e-mails from people asking, ‘Are you the real John Clayton? And if so, why have you stopped writing for ESPN?’

Not that sharing a name with a Hall of Fame writer is all bad. On one hand, it helps the people I interview remember me. It’s an icebreaker. No better way to form a rapport with an athlete than to banter for a minute or two about my name or the person I share it with.

I’ve embraced the jokes about my namesake. Just look at my tagline. Although, I should admit that was forced on me by my colleagues here. (I would have preferred ‘ESPN.com Senior Writer.’)

But having a journalistically famous name does pose a fundamental issue. As writers, our name is all we have. A reporter is a faceless entity. The only thing distinguishing my story from the one next to it is my name at the top.

So how do I differentiate myself? (Well, besides the fact I’m the John Clayton NOT writing for ESPN.com.) I could change my pen name. J.S. Clayton sounds rather stately. But that would feel weird. ‘Hi, my name’s J.S.’ No thanks. John S. Clayton? That sounds a bit better.

Really, it doesn’t matter. The references will always follow me. All I can do is try to carve my own niche as a sports writer. Maybe even make a name for myself, even if that name’s already been made by somebody else.

My time at The Daily Orange gave me a start in that department. Working at this newspaper has taught me so much – things I could have never learned in any communications school. The D.O. made me work harder than I ever have at anything in my life. It pushed me to become a better journalist.

Who knows, maybe one day I’ll cover an event alongside the real John Clayton. Maybe I’ll ask him why, on his Wikipedia page, it says his given name is Johan, not John.

I probably won’t. After all, it’s just a name, right?

John S. Clayton is a former sports editor and assistant sports editor at The Daily Orange, where his columns used to appear. You can reach him at jsclayto@gmail.com.

 

Published on December 3, 2008 at 12:00 pm