Jared Cummins enjoys cross country

Keep this a secret – one of Riverside cross country coach Bill Kemp’s favorite athletes doesn’t particularly like to run.

Here’s how senior Jared Cummins puts it:

“I’m not really a big fan of running, but I’ve enjoyed everything we do as a team. It’s given me a chance to be with my friends, and Coach Kemp makes it fun – he even made me feel like running!

“There’ve been kids out there who haven’t even thought about cross-country as running. Sometimes guys have come out two or three weeks into the season. We’ve had lots of guys who say they hate running but love cross country.”

Cummins is a young man who embodies what high school athletics is supposed to be about. He battled through injuries his senior year to finish his career with a personal best at the Great Northern League district meet.

“Two of Jared’s best qualities are his enthusiasm and his dependability,” said Kemp. “There may have been faster runners, but what Jared said he was going to do, he did. Every team needs a motivator, and he was ours.

“I always tell our seniors that some years I celebrate when they’re gone, and some years I cry. I’m going to miss Jared and the rest of this senior group. We do lots of fun stuff together, and the kids learn that you don’t have to be the fastest runner to have fun and compete – you just need the right attitude.”

Cummins ran cross country for four years, starting as a freshman mainly because his older brother and his mother had also run for Kemp.

“I was just dinking around at the beginning,” he said, “but eventually I started running all the time. I had really high hopes going into my senior year, but I had Achilles tendon and shin-splint problems.”

Cummins also competed in soccer at Riverside for three years and went from being a part-time varsity player as a junior to an all-Great Northern League performer as a senior.

He’ll attend Washington State University in the fall, majoring in construction management. He’ll play intramural soccer and, of course, he’ll run.