(Photo: Kylee Meter / WCSN)
Jake Clifford is a junior center for ASU hockey. He has made himself a regular guy in the locker room and a guaranteed spot in the lineup due to his positive attitude and ability to battle through adversity.
“He cares about the team,” head coach Greg Powers said. “He puts the team before he puts himself and he’ll do whatever’s asked off him. He just wants the team to be successful so we need more Jake Cliffords.
“I coach a lot off of my gut and I feel better when Jake Clifford is in the lineup. I feel better about our team. I feel better about our bench. I feel better about our locker room.”
However that guaranteed spot wasn’t always the case.
“I just didn’t play a lot my first two years and that’s not easy to go through as a student-athlete,” Clifford said. “When things aren’t going the right way, you can only control what you can control. For me, I wasn’t playing and all I could really worry about was just trying to get better in some way and keeping a positive attitude because your attitude determines your altitude.”
The former defensive player found himself on the end of streaks in which he was watching his team through the eyes of an observer.
Clifford came to ASU to help create a program. He couldn’t do that by not playing.
“I think we were in Quinnipiac and I gave the coaches the idea of putting me on forward,” Clifford said. “They thought about it and they didn’t end up using me that game because I got ejected but the following next couple of weekends, it was in the back of their minds and then I played the last two games at the end of last season on forward.”
“He was pretty excited to get the opportunity because he knew the way Coach wanted him to play,” teammate David Norris said. “He would play kind of with a grittier style and he knew that if he plays that way, he’ll play every single night.”
Powers says that Clifford is an elite skater and extremely physical and that skill set is better suited up front and down-the-middle for the team. It allows him to have free range to make plays.
“He turned the corner and paid his dues and fought through adversity and now he’s in a position because of how he’s handled himself through adversity where he deserves to continue to be rewarded with more and more ice time,” Powers said.
“I looked at it more as a fresh start and kind of embraced it,” said Clifford.
There was a few week stretch towards the end of the season in which Clifford was the centerman nominated to go between two different lines.
“It was definitely tiring but you get used to it and when you’re playing a lot, you don’t really want to complain. If your tired you just kind of battle,” Clifford said.
But that ability to fight through hardship is one of the exact reasons why Powers wants him on the lineup sheet for every game.
Every college student matures on and off the ice different and for Jake Clifford, he happened to hit his stride halfway through his second season and has yet to look back.
“You learn a lot about a person when they’re going through adversity, when they’re going through rough times,” Clifford said. “The people that stick with it and they keep battling, those are the ones that make it through and if you don’t, those are the people that stray away and fall off a little bit and I did not want that to happen.”
It’s that mentality and that work ethic that has given Clifford the pay off. Powers said he was an essential piece in helping the team establish their identity.
“Jake Clifford is a corner piece and a true piece of our foundation and is the kind of kid were building this and have built this around,” Powers said. “He’s just all in. He embodies what we want this program to be about.”
