Clay Whitehead, who began his college football coaching career at Kalamazoo College in 2018, returned as the Hornets’ defensive coordinator in May of 2022. He also coaches the safeties.

Whitehead began his football coaching career at the high school level in the Kalamazoo area. He started at Parchment High School in 2014-15 and then spent a year at Galesburg-Augusta High School, before moving up north to take a position with Sault Sainte Marie Area High School in 2017.

He first arrived at Kalamazoo College in 2018 as an intern assisting with the defense and was then promoted to defensive graduate assistant and defensive line coach for the 2019 season. Whitehead held that position through 2020 and then joined the coaching staff at Cornell College (Iowa) in 2021. That move proved to be a short detour out of Kalamazoo, as just one year later he returns as the top defensive assistant to head coach Jamie Zorbo.

Whitehead competed collegiately as a long jumper and triple jumper for two years at Lake Superior State University. He holds a B.S. in sports and recreation management from Lake Superior State University and an M.A. in sports management from Western Michigan University and lives with his girlfriend Lauren in Kalamazoo.