PORTLAND, Ore. – The coach who just ended the WisconsinBadgers’ 2025-26 season has a unique connection to the state of Wisconsin – and specifically its NFL team.
High Point’s Flynn Clayman is the son of Richard Clayman, who directed a one-man play about legendary Green Bay Packers coach Vince Lombardi.
The play “Vince: The Life & Times Of Vince Lombardi” debuted in Los Angeles in the 1990s, giving the eventual college basketball coach some early exposure to the life of the Packers coach who led the team to wins in the first two Super Bowls and five championships in the pre-Super Bowl era.
“Before the play got bigger, I was running the lights at times,” Clayman said. “And then we had a writer from the LA Times saw it and loved it. And when he put the article out, then that’s when the Packer guys started coming, and they loved it.”
Clayman had the chance to meet Bart Starr and Willie Davis, among other Packer greats. It also took the future High Point coach to some cool places.
“Then he got to do the show at the Hall of Fame, so we went to the Hall of Fame and did it there,” Clayman said. “And then they actually opened the Super Bowl once with it.”
The play was one of the factors that helped Clayman become a Packers fan.
“We had no team in LA when I was growing up,” Clayman said. “We had college football, and we had no pro team. So that was my only team. And they won the Super Bowl right around when I started becoming a fan in New Orleans against the Patriots, and so I’ve just stayed a fan. That’s my team.”
High Point eliminated Wisconsin from March Madness in an 83-82 game on March 19 in the first round of the men’s NCAA Tournament. It marked the Badgers’ eighth season (excluding the COVID-19-shortened season) in which they failed to reach the Sweet 16.
Clayman’s 12th-seeded Panthers will look to put on another show against John Calipari’s fourth-seeded Arkansas Razorbacks on March 21 in the second round of the NCAA Tournament.
“We had fun yesterday,” Clayman said, referencing the upset of the Badgers. “And we’re going to keep having fun.”
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Coach who knocked Badgers out of March Madness has Packers connection
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