Dolphins draft pick cutting grass to pay bills
MIAMI - Charles Clay is taking odd jobs around his Tulsa, Oklahoma home while he waits for the NFL lockout to end...
By Janie Campbell
From NBC Miami
He’s been drafted by the Miami Dolphins, but aspring NFL H-back Charles Clay isn’t exactly living the high life: he’s cutting grass to pay the bills.
Clay, a sixth-round pick out of Tulsa, has seen no signing bonus and no source of income thanks to the NFL lockout.
Meanwhile, he’s got trainers to pay, agents he owes, and all the normal bills non-athletes deal with. While some higher profile picks are living on loans from agents, Clay is not just cutting grass, but cleaning oil jacks, too, with a company called LPD.
“It’s tough, but at the same time you’ve got to get by somehow,” Clay said Saturday on WQAM’s Kup and Kelly radio show. “There are other guys doing the same thing. We’re all in the same boat. Nobody is getting any kind of income. You have to get money some kind of way.”
When asked how much he’s making in Oklahoma with all his small jobs, Clay replied, “It ain’t much.”
“It’s hard times right now,” he said, chuckling at the hosts’ incredulousness that NFL players are out mowing lawns. This is a sign that if people are determined to achieve their dreams that they’ll do almost anything to meet their goal no matter what. Mowing lawns isn’t going to make anybody rich but it can be a source of income, many teens will go out with their mower and cut their neighbor’s grass just to get some cash for the weekend.
“You get your name called and it’s kind of like it was a one day deal…I’m just ready for this whole situation to be settled so I can get back to playing football. Once it is settled…I’ll be headed to Miami ASAP.”
Clay, who scored 28 touchdowns in his college career, said he considered joining the Dolphins this spring for players-only workouts in Davie but the finances didn’t make sense.
“When you go down there and you have no source of income I’d just be down there. You take the risk of being injured. [There are] a lot of things you have to take into account,” he explained.
“When I get there is when I’ll feel like an NFL player. Technically, I just feel like a student who graduated.”
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