I really don't want to relitigate this and I know that many people have butted heads about it, so I'm really NOT trying to throw a molotov cocktail in here, but phrasing of this matters. Of course we all want someone who will compete, and of course we would all hate it if someone said "I want things handed to me and I don't want to compete, or I will take my ball and go home."
But we are dealing with people here, and there is usually grey when it comes to people. Normal people don't say stuff like that. None of us were in that room with the coaches (whoever among them it may be) and Clif, and there were only two people on the phone between a coach and Clif. Maybe put a little humanity on the kid, and put yourself into situations where you have gotten news you didn't want and maybe you don't process it well or communicate. Maybe he really thought this was his team lining up behind him (like it seemed on socials), and maybe he really thought he finally had a staff that was about to tell him that they appreciated him and were trusting him with the future of the program. When he instead heard that competition is always open, maybe he was feeling some hurt and wasn't listening very well. I've done that. Maybe the phrasings were done in a way that the coaches thought they were saying one thing, and he was hearing another.
I doubt there is any path to Clif coming back, but it would be a disservice to him if we on Egriz started spreading a narrative that we knew that Clif "didn't want to compete." He obviously went to a school where he would have to compete for a starting job. He wasn't scared of competition. I have my own theories on what was in his head, but I don't really know. None of us do. But lets not spread a false narrative that we know Clif "didn't want to compete." That is a pretty one-sided take, in my opinon