Residence Richmond, VA area Occupation Founder/CEO Name Sylvester Clay Education Carson–Newman University | Citizenship United States Website teamacp.com Role Basketball player | |
Born 1966 Petersburg, VA U.S.A. Known for Construction services, Basketball coaching | ||
Sylvester Darnell Clay (born August 14, 1966) is a former college basketball player and coach raised in Petersburg, Virginia. He founded the Harlem Road Kings Comedy Basketball Team, based out of Morristown, Tennessee, which delivered an anti-drug message to kids around the South. He later built the minority-owned construction firm, Team ACP Construction L.L.C. which in 2008 was a contractor in the Richmond, Virginia area. He has also remains involved in sports as one of the top sponsors for the Colonial Athletic Association basketball conference.
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Early life
Orphaned as a youngster, Clay was raised by his grandparents and "was good enough in football and basketball to earn a scholarship to Carson-Newman College in Jefferson City, Tenn."
Coaching
After finishing school at Carson-Newman College, Clay went to work for their coaching staff. During the next two years, he went to work for Middle Tennessee State and was later hired as Associate Head Coach for Bristol University in Tennessee, where he was involved in recruiting, scouting, game prepping and developing the team’s post position players; he then went to Milligan College in Johnson, Tennessee, where he coached the basketball team to a 27-9 record, the team best record since 1948. Next, he was offered a position with Virginia Intermont College as associate head coach, and the following season, he became head coach of Junior College basketball at Knoxville College in Morristown, Tennessee, where he took a program that had a 1-32 losing streak and turned it around to win 30-5, knocking off the number one ranked junior college in the country.
STAND and Harlem Road Kings Comedy Basketball Team
Clay teamed with former NBA great, John Lucas and formed STAND (Students Taking Action Not Drugs), a series of summer sports camps for at-risk children in the Bristol, Virginia area. STAND started as a crisis center that later expanded services to include a hot line for teens that offered crisis and emergency counseling as well as peer support groups; this "led to programs that were put in place when the NBA and the NBA Players Association began to deal with drug issues." Clay also founded the Harlem Road Kings Comedy Basketball Team, based out of Morristown, Tennessee, whose message was to talk to kids about staying off drugs and in school.
Construction business
Clay entered the construction business as a government subcontractor "to clean up debris along the North Carolina coast after two hurricanes"; after years of working in residential construction, the housing bubble pushed Clay to search for other opportunities which led him to Virginia’s program for small, women- and minority-owned businesses. He formed Team ACP Construction L.L.C. which won 15 Parade of Homes awards in 2008 in the Richmond, Virginia area.
Clay currently serves on the board of American Heart Association, has served on the board of VCU Athletics and STAND (Students Taking Action Not Drugs). He has been involved in Habitat for Humanity, Work with wounded Veterans, and the Colonial Athletic Association. Most recently, his new initiative is a prisoner re-entry program that he will launch here in the New Orleans area where workers, including felons, will be trained to perform construction tasks and give them the training to be successful.
Legal Trouble
In 2005, Clay was charged with allegedly "misus[ing] $11,000 in federal money" in 2000 meant for an affordable housing project. A federal court jury acquitted Clay of the crime in 2006.