Saint Francis assistant coach Warren Maloney leaned back in his office chair a little and smiled at the distant memory of his nephew.
“When he was a little kid, the ‘I like Mike’ thing was going on, and he wanted to shave his head,” Maloney said. “His mom wouldn’t have any of that.”
Maloney knows this because his sister, Cindy, is the mom of the Cougars’ No. 1 receiving threat, senior Jared Clodfelter.
To nearly all of the Saint Francis players and staff, Maloney’s title is defensive coordinator; to Clodfelter, he’s Uncle Warren.
“There are still some guys – even this summer I heard them talking out there in the lobby – who didn’t realize he was related to me,” Maloney said.
“We try to keep the football stuff separate. I don’t coach him. The only time I ever see him in practice is if we happen to have a scrimmage, and once the season starts, I don’t see him at all, really, other than practice. The only time I get to watch him is game day.”
The natural assumption is that Clodfelter, who came to Saint Francis out of Nashville, Tenn., as a gangly, 6-foot-5 receiver with deceptive speed and deft hands, was a slam dunk recruit for the Cougars, considering the bloodlines.
That wasn’t the case, even though head coach Kevin Donley tried to assert his own clout.
“(Donley) offered him a scholarship at my wedding,” Maloney said. “We’d seen him on film, and we recruited him like anybody else. We thought he had a chance to be good. We normally don’t recruit in Nashville, Tenn., but since he was there, we gave it a shot.”
When Morehead State, Clodfelter’s first choice, proved to be a disappointment after the first semester, he called Uncle Warren and Donley.
“I knew about the place,” Clodfelter said. “I’ve been coming to games here since the program started. I was at games the very first season. I’ve been around Saint Francis for a long time.”
He learned the ropes as a freshman but had a successful sophomore year when he led all receivers with eight touchdown receptions.
Clodfelter hoped for even more last season, but in the seventh game, against Missouri Science & Technology, he landed awkwardly while trying to catch a ball and broke his right collarbone. His final numbers: 26 catches for 316 yards and a touchdown.
It was all part of an injury-plagued season for the Cougars, who not only lost that game, but also their last two to finish 7-3.
“Last season didn’t go as well as anybody expected,” Clodfelter said. “When I transferred, I was hoping, at this point, to have three conference championships and a national championship or two. That hasn’t worked out like that, but we’ve got one more chance, so I’d be happy with two conference championships and one national championship.”
One more chance.
That’s why Clodfelter came back to play in the first place, was for that one more chance.
Even though he graduated last May as a secondary education major and is looking for a full-time gig as an English teacher, Clodfelter began work on his master’s and decided to give football one final season.
The broken collarbone and the 7-3 record are no ways to say goodbye.
“After going 7-3, obviously there’s going to be some emotion there going into the next season; there’s got to be,” Clodfelter said. “If not, you might as well not even suit up and go out. We still talk about it when the players get around. Nobody wants that again – definitely a lot of emotion carrying over.”
