From His First Steps At O’Dea to Hurdles On The Track: Clifton Mahoney’s Journey

SEATTLE – When he took his first steps on to the campus of O’Dea High School, senior Clifton Mahoney had only one thing on his mind. That “thing” was making an impact on O’Dea’s track team which was very successful in previous years.

Mahoney walked into O’Dea as a tall and lanky freshman ready to take on the new challenges O’Dea had to offer. Throughout his whole life, he enjoyed running in any sort of way and he wanted to make an impact at O’Dea one way or another with it. But Mahoney was faced with many challenges that many O’Dea athletes haven’t had to experience. In his freshman year, he was looking forward to his first ever track season as a high school, but unfortunately the COVID-19 pandemic had other ideas and shut the season down completely.

“It was truly a huge disappointment. I was seriously looking forward to running in my very first season at this elite level,” Mahoney said.

Fortunately for Mahoney and many other runners on the Irish track team, the pandemic didn’t last forever and the next year the team was able to get back and able to run again. Although the runners were able to get back out on the track and run, it wasn’t exactly the same as seasons in the past. The competitions were different, meets had a lot less people than the traditional type meets they had pre-COVID, so it was definitely not like the real deal at all.

When Mahoney’s junior year rolled around, it almost seemed a “reset” button had been pushed. School was back to 100% in-person learning just like it was beginning of freshman year, and all the sports went back to normal as well. This was also the year that Mahoney had his “breakout year” as some could say.

“Junior year was the year track really started to grow on me because I actually had a chance to run for a whole season. During that season I began to truly love the sport and started to succeed a lot more throughout the season,” Mahoney said.

Starting in this year, Mahoney also started to figure out his main events and the ones he wanted to continue running into his senior year.

“I really started to succeed at shorter distances which included the 110m hurdles, 200m, and the 4 x 100m relay. Out of those I would say my favorite is the 110m hurdles,” Mahoney said.

While track has made a big impact on Mahoney personally, the supporting cast of him has also made a large impact as well.

“Running track has helped my relation to my friends and the brotherhood grow and track has impacted me by helping better myself as an individual as I learn to have self-discipline while running and to have a good work ethic.”

Mahoney is very ecstatic about his future later this year running track and what’s to come after high school.