Meet Southeast Polk's Cade Borud, a 315-pound hockey player set to play Division I football

Southeast Polk senior Cade Borud crouches at the center of the Rams’ offensive line. He looks left, then right as he waits for quarterback Jaxon Dailey to clap his hands in the Rams' Week 2 game against Valley.

Borud snaps the ball to Dailey and goes to work. He bulldozes through the Tigers' defensive line, sending Ramez Naba to the ground before he has a chance to get at Southeast Polk’s playmakers. It gives Dailey enough time to get the ball off and into the hands of Cole Filloon, who runs it the rest of the way for a touchdown.

That type of dominant play was common for Borud this past fall.

He earned one of five offensive lineman spots on the Des Moines Register's All-Iowa Elite Team this season. He's the Register's No. 20-ranked in-state 2022 football prospect, and No. 4 among offensive linemen, and he's signed to play Division I football at North Dakota over other offers from South Dakota State, Western Illinois and Southeast Missouri State.

But football wasn’t always Borud’s top sport.

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He didn’t get his start in baseball.

Or basketball.

Or wrestling or any other sport you're probably thinking about.

The 6-foot-3, 315-pound lineman started on skates. Ice hockey was his sport of choice when he was young. Well, maybe it wasn’t exactly a choice, but rather Borud following in his father’s footsteps.

Doug Borud came to Iowa from Two Harbors, Minnesota – a state where playing hockey is almost a birthright – in 1992. He played one year with the Des Moines Buccaneers in the USHL before four years of college club hockey at Iowa State.

When his playing career was over, Doug turned to coaching. He, along with a group of other hockey dads, started the Des Moines Oak Leafs, a club hockey team that plays in the Midwest High School League. He stepped away in 2007 when his daughter was born, but he still had plenty of time to coach his son.

So, it was never really a question of if Cade would play hockey, but when. And he was a rink rat from the moment he was born, according to Doug.

“I know that kind of sounds funny but he was there pretty much since the day he was born,” Doug told the Des Moines Register. “I was the coach of the team and he was at the rink, having hockey moms hold him and all that stuff.

“That’s how he got started in it, and then when he was about 2 and started walking is when we started getting him on the ice.”

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Cade doesn’t remember how, exactly, he got into hockey in the first place. He remembers it wasn’t as popular of a sport when he was younger, but that didn’t stop him from playing the game he grew to love.

“As I got older, I realized I was so much better at football than I was at hockey,” Borud said. “When I was younger, I actually did enjoy hockey a lot more than I did football, because I was not as big as I am now, obviously. It kind of turned into something to have fun and stay in shape.”

Doug described his son as a stay-at-home defenseman, or a player more concerned with guarding his team’s net than racking up points. He said Cade was a disciplined defenseman, even though any 300-pound skater who’s learned to throw blocks on the gridiron could easily interrupt an opposing offense on the ice.

But as time went on – despite his skating skills and defensive prowess – Borud said he wasn’t built for hockey anymore. Starting his athletic development in hockey did have its perks, though, even as Borud physically outgrew the game.

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There are some skills he learned in hockey that most players can’t pick up on the football field alone, balance and footwork among them.

“Balance is huge in hockey, learning how to skate and stuff,” Borud said. “You need to be able to stay up right, stay on your feet, and that definitely translates to footwork for football. Our offensive line coach always told me I had the best feet he’s ever seen, and I give that all to hockey.”

And then there’s overcoming the fear factor of playing a game on skates. Hockey was never scary for Borud, but there was a little discomfort as he got older and lost a little bit of his “touch.” That meant injury was always a possibility. After years of playing a high-speed game on ice, opposing defensive linemen didn't seem like much of a threat.

But eventually, Borud knew he needed to step away from ice hockey to focus on football. He started spending more time with football than hockey around seventh grade, when coaches told him he could excel if he focused on football. Borud continued to play hockey on the side through the 2020-21 season, bouncing back and forth between varsity and junior varsity for the Oak Leafs.

There was little that could get between him and his love for the game, even his size. Borud knew he was always the biggest player on the ice, but that didn't bother him. It did get into some opponent's heads.

"Their reaction was always big-eyed and just like, 'Holy crap,'" Borud said. "I was the biggest kid. Nobody ever had a kid that was close to my size on any other team."

This fall, he wanted to enjoy his senior year, and that meant a break from hockey. Southeast Polk’s success on the football field made that decision a little easier.

“By the time we won the state championship this year, they (Oak Leafs) were probably already about 15-20 games in,” Borud said. “I was able to get into it last year but it’s a grind. It starts from October all the way into March and I wanted to enjoy more of my senior year while having more time to do other things like lifting and training.”

Most high-level dual-sport athletes will need to cut ties with one activity at some point. Borud isn't the first Division I football player that came from a hockey background.

Maybe he’ll join the ranks of hockey players turned football stars, like J.J. Watt and Michael Dieter in the NFL.

Just because he’s signed on to play football for the Fighting Hawks doesn’t mean Borud won’t stop playing hockey, even if it’s just for fun. His gear will come with him to North Dakota, a college hockey powerhouse.

When the lakes freeze over and hockey rinks open for the winter, Borud will be ready to play, just like he is every time he crouches at center on the football field, balanced on a set of strong ankles built by ice hockey.

Alyssa Hertel is a college sports recruiting reporter for the Des Moines Register. Contact Alyssa at ahertel@dmreg.com or on Twitter @AlyssaHertel.

This article originally appeared on Des Moines Register: Cade Borud is a 315-pound hockey player bound for Division I football