Part two of my Q/A:

John Clayton has to be the most unlikely person ever to be trending on YouTube. As of Tuesday morning, his ESPN SportsCenter commercial had nearly 2.4 million views and counting.

Then again, it’s always been about contrasts for Clayton. He is the bookish-looking ESPN analyst who seems more suited to talk about quantum physics than 3-4 defenses.

The new ad plays up those contrasts to the extreme. Off camera, Clayton lets down his ponytail, and is portrayed as hard rock loving 20-something who still lives with his mother. Brilliant.

Actually, Clayton is 58 and lives with his wife in Seattle. And James Brown, not Slayer, is his taste in music.

Clayton already was quite famous. However, the commercial has taken it to a new level. I asked him about it in Part 2 of my interview.

Does it all seem surreal?

Totally surreal. I’ve always have been low-key. I always have and always will be. A newspaper guy who has been fortunate enough to do TV. It’s just so different to have this kind of reaction. Just to see the reaction on all this stuff is amazing.

I mean more than 2 million hits on YouTube. Whoa. You’re looking on Twitter and you see LeBron James saying I’m hilarious in the commercial.

I mean, c’mon.

What did you think when you heard the idea for the commercial?

I had no problem with it. It seemed to be so fun, so funny and so different. The one thing about SportsCenter commercials is that you can laugh at yourself.

I only go to Bristol one time a year. So every time I’m seen (during his regular ESPN shots from his home), it is from the chest up. People see the same shot all the time. This is like pulling back the curtain.

Yes, people always have wondered if you have legs.

More than a year ago, a guy takes an alias on Twitter of ‘John Clayton’s Legs’. The guy is funny. He must be a writer.

Last year, we did a show at ESPN. A rapper I guess likes me and saw me in the studio. He tweets out to his 3 million followers. ‘Hey, Clayton’s here, you can actually see his legs.’

(Long-time center) Kevin Mawae came over to me several years ago when he was at Tennessee. He said, ‘You have the camera at your house, don’t you?’

Yea sure.

He says, ‘When you do your TV hits, what do you wear under the suit?’

Trying to be funny, I said, ‘Nothing.’

Kevin goes, ‘God dang, I’ve got to play a game today for three hours and I’ve got that visual in my head now.’

Do you really have a ponytail?

Dan Patrick started this thing that I have a ponytail. I don’t have a ponytail. I don’t have enough hair. Because of Internet, tweeting, it’s always this question, ‘John, do you have a ponytail?’

The ad incorporated that, which is funny. It seemed to address a bunch of stuff. I thought, ‘Whatever you think is fine. You just tell me what to do.’

What was it like doing the commercial?

We shot the commercial in some area underneath some bypasses in Los Angeles. I wondered where they were taking me. It looked like either there was going to be a crack deal out there or a shootout. I told my driver, ‘Am I here to shoot a commercial or to be shot?’

There were 65 people on the set. I’m the only one involved in this commercial and you have all these people here. It was surprising.

We did 22 takes. I think by 10 they were pretty comfortable. We tried a couple different styles. Do you want it loud? Do you want it snarly? The original script was pretty much the way it came out. The outtakes were from 10 through 22. They were trying to experiment to see if there was something else that worked better.

Describe your office. Are the walls covered with rock posters?

We just built a new house. Everything is brand new.

In the office, there’s the ESPN backdrop, which everyone sees. The camera is on a shelf. It is only 6-inches tall. They control it from Bristol.

You’d see a desk where I do my work. There’s a radio set-up (with an ISDN line for his many appearances during the week) and fax.

This is the first time I’ve been able to display the awards I’ve been lucky enough to win. There’s the plaque for the Dick McCann Award (awarded by the NFL Hall of Fame). The two sports Emmys ESPN was nice enough to give me. There’s a plaque from going into the Duquense Hall of Fame (where Clayton went to college in Pittsburgh).

Are you a big fan of Slayer?

Sure. Of course.