AIDAN POLLARD
Sports Editor
It would be insulting to label Jack Corbett as just an athlete. He was much more than that. He was a student, a son and a friend.
Corbett played six games for Fredonia’s club hockey team during the 2017-18 season.
Corbett was a local high school player for Orchard Park, and his move to the Fredonia club hockey team while he was enrolled speaks to his love of the game.
Corbett was not a hockey player who spent his time after high school playing for a junior league before he went to college. He did not follow the track of many collegiate athletes and play for his one last chance at the game at a competitive level.
Corbett was a student first.
Juggling sports and school can so often cause a student-athlete to falter in at least one, if not both.
However, Corbett kept his academics ahead of him as he planned to come into the semester re-enrolled as a computer and information sciences major.
Like many students, Corbett went through a change in majors, but he was coming back to Fredonia about to get a fresh start in a new department.
It takes a huge amount of dedication to be an athlete, and that speaks to the kind of person Fredonia lost in Corbett.
Playing a sport in college at any level takes a great amount of discipline and dedication, and it could be argued that club sports can be even more taxing.
Club sports receive both no aid from the athletic department and no scholarship money for athletic ability. Club sport athletes have to pay their own way for equipment, and do it just for the love of their game.
Playing at the club level means the athletes get no publicity from the athletics department and no help from athletic trainers should they encounter an injury.
Fredonia should be proud to have had a person like Corbett enrolled at the school, and the club hockey team should be proud to have had him on their roster.
The Fredonia club hockey team plans to honor and remember him throughout the upcoming season.
Corbett’s No. 14 will be worn by the club throughout this year, which is one of the highest possible honors and respects in sports.
Both the Fredonia campus and the Fredonia Blue Devils club hockey team will forever have a hole left by Corbett’s absence.
Fredonia lost a student, friend and a Blue Devil in Jack’s passing, and he will be sorely missed by all of us.