Randy Unscripted

Randy Unscripted

By Randall BlackSociety & CulturePersonal Journals
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Randy Unscripted episodes

  • Honoring Coach Jim Clayton: A Life of Faith, Service, and Unshakable Encouragement

    In this deeply personal episode, I honor my dear friend, colleague, co-host, and mentor, Coach Jim Clayton, who passed away on September 18, 2025. I share how Jim first impacted me as a teenager, how our friendship grew through years of teaching together, and what I learned from his everyday example—his integrity, humility, encouragement, and relentless commitment to helping others win at life. From lunches at Huntington High to collaborating at Cabell Midland, to praying with him at center court at Sports City U, and finally launching this podcast together on July 1, our conversations became some of the most meaningful of my decade in podcasting.
    Jim was a devoted teacher, inspiring coach, faithful friend, loving husband to Anne, father to Elizabeth and Wes (and Kayla), and proud “Pop Pop” to Vera and Heidi—with his loyal buddy Alfie by his side. Rooted in faith, he lived the values he taught: service, compassion, perseverance, and belief. Anchored by Psalm 34:18, 2 Timothy 4:7–8, and Matthew 5:4, this episode is a tribute to Jim’s life and legacy—and an invitation to honor him by believing bigger, achieving louder, and motivating stronger, every day.

    14 min
  • Staff Development vs. Professional Learning
    Teachers across the world are required each year to complete a specific number of hours of “professional” or “staff development.” Many times they are all funneled into a single room where they everyone is presented with the same topic, strategy, or technology tool. This is a very over generalized way to help educators to grow […]
    17 min
  • Non-Traditional Instructional Days for Inclement Weather
    West Virginia has made a change in the state law in relation to school instructional days and inclement weather. The changes in the law provide for school districts to provide Non-Traditional Instructional (NTI) days. These days provide for students to complete assignments as part of a “Snow Packet” from home in lieu of attending school […]
    19 min
  • Why Should I Be a Connected Educator?
    As the Internet has become more and more pervasive in our everyday lives educators from around the world have been looking for ways to harness this to continue their professional growth outside of the traditional professional development that their districts and schools have provided. This has led to the growth of being a connected educator. […]
    15 min
  • Getting Started with Office 365
    Microsoft’s Office 365 Education is an amazing platform that provides a lot of useful features and tools to educators and students. Great tools like Teams, OneNote, Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Learning Tools, Forms, Skype for Business, Sway, Outlook, and OneDrive provide a robust suite that can have an immediate impact in the classroom for both educators […]
    20 min
  • #EdCampNSV
    #EdCampNSV On September 22, 2018 #EdCampNSV was hosted at Johnson-Williams Middle School in Berryville, VA. Following up the event, I was able to sit down with four other educators at the event and reflect a bit on the things we experienced during the day. The four educators joining me for this discussion are Patrick Hausammann […]
    30 min
  • 32 Down & A Lot More To Go w/Steve Freeman
    32 Down & A Lot More To Go Steve Freeman is a veteran educator with 32 years of classroom experience in West Virginia. He currently teaches AP Government and AP Psychology at Huntington High School (HHS) in Huntington, WV. He previously taught at Elkview Junior High/Middle and Capital High Schools in Kanawha County. Outside of […]
    27 min
  • MADPD – Making Tech Disappear
    MADPD – Making Tech Disappear On May 6, 2018 I was fortunate to take part in a session as a part of MADPD hosted by Shane Lawrence (Twitter) of The Ed Podcast (Ed – Conversations About the Teaching Life). Joining us in the session were Kasey Bell (Twitter, Website, Google Teacher Tribe) and Brad Shreffler […]
    1 hr 1 min
  • Believe! Achieve! Motivate! w/Jimmy Clayton (Part 2)
    Believe! Achieve! Motivate! Today’s episode features Part 2 of my discussion with Jimmy Clayton (Twitter, LinkedIn), a retired educator and coach who spent 35 years working for Cabell County Schools in WV. He is the founder of Sports City U, a previous shooting consultant with the NBA’s New Jersey (now Brooklyn) Nets and Portland Trail Blazers and […]
    32 min

About Randy Unscripted

From the publisher's feed

Hosted by educator and podcaster Randy Black, Randy Unscripted dives into modern culture, technology, news, and occasional matters of faith with curiosity and candor. Listeners can expect a mix of…