Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, January 13, 1993 TAG: 9301130097
SECTION: SPORTS PAGE: B4 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JACK BOGACZYK
DATELINE: LYNCHBURG LENGTH: Medium
A BUMPY ROAD BRINGS CUMMINGS TO LYNCHBURG
Anthony Cummings played only 14 minutes of basketball Monday night in only his fifth game for Lynchburg College before fouling out.He wasn't complaining. Cummings appreciates every second he spends on the floor.
The Roanoke resident is a Division I player in a Division III league, and the 6-foot-7 junior is pressing to meet expectations in the ODAC.
He should relax. Getting there was enough of a struggle - not of his doing - that could have been his undoing.
"Anthony is a survivor," said Joe Davis, who is coaching Cummings for a second time in a second place. "To hear some of the things people say about him in the ODAC, that he doesn't belong here, it burns me up."
Cummings' past two seasons have been dominated by administrative adventures. He thought his major adjustment would be a move to Roanoke and Cave Spring High School before his junior year, from a tough neighborhood in his native Savannah, Ga.
"That wasn't nearly as difficult as what's happened since," Cummings said.
At Cave Spring, Davis was appointed coach before Cummings' senior season. What he saw in summer-league games from the Knights' big man was "a jewel in the rough who needed to work harder," Davis said. "Anthony wasn't really involved in the whole game."
Little wonder. Before he moved to Roanoke to live with his aunt, Cynthia Ross, Cummings' only hoop experience was streetball. After he made then-coach Ed Peterson's team, he said, "there were parents on my case and complaining that I shouldn't be playing. They said I was 6-6, couldn't run and wasn't coordinated."
Cummings said he "had no intentions of going to college" then, but after a solid senior year he had Division I dreams, and Davis helped guide him to Louisburg Junior College. Cummings didn't qualify for a grant-in-aid, but he prospered academically and athletically in two Louisburg seasons, averaging 12.7 and 17 points.
His best Division I offer came from Virginia Commonwealth, and he signed. After attending classes for four weeks and playing pickup games with his new teammates, Cummings was called into coach Sonny Smith's office and told that although the Rams wanted him to stay in school, his scholarship had to be taken away.
"I sat there and cried like a baby," Cummings said.
"We both were bawling," said Smith, for whom Cummings would have been no worse than the top frontcourt reserve.
Cummings had gotten a D in a biology course at Louisburg. That's a passing grade, but VCU does not accept D's from transfers. The grade put Cummings two hours short of what he needed to transfer, although he graduated from junior college. He could have stayed in school, but he would have been ineligible to play for the Rams.
Apparently, VCU's registrar's office hadn't noticed Cummings' D before he began classes. Smith wanted Cummings to stay and accept a redshirt year.
"I told Coach Smith there was no way I could afford to pay the tuition," Cummings said.
So, he "withdrew, passing" from each of his VCU classes and called Davis, who had been hired as Lynchburg's coach a couple of months earlier. Davis told Cummings he could enroll in January 1992 and play immediately. However, the NCAA had passed a rule to make Division I players who drop to Division II and III schools sit out a year.
"The rule was put in to keep kids who flunk out in Division I from dropping down and playing right away," Davis said. "Anthony didn't flunk. He graduated from Louisburg. He was passing at VCU, and now he's passing here. It wasn't his fault that he spent 4-5 weeks at VCU. If he would have known the situation, he would have come straight to Lynchburg from Louisburg.
"We appealed to the NCAA. They said it didn't matter, that Anthony had attended classes at VCU. So, he had to sit out until last semester ended. It was like having a door slammed in his face again."
His first game for the Hornets was Dec. 19 at Davidson. The irony wasn't lost on the communications major whose eligibility runs through 1993-94.
"There I was, playing against a Division I team," Cummings said. "Then I thought how it just felt good to be back on the floor in uniform. Having to sit out, after everything, was an atrocious experience.
"The VCU incident is over. I don't blame anyone. Things like that are a part of life. Everyone has downfalls."
Tonight, when his former VCU teammates are working out at Freedom Hall in preparation for playing Louisville before a crowd of 19,000, Cummings will take his 14-point, 7-rebound average before a few hundred spectators at Washington and Lee.
"Anthony's hungriness is what's gotten him here," Davis said. "What's most important is that he's a good person. He hasn't hurt anyone."
His low-post spin move might do that, though.
"Maybe all of this happened for a reason," Cummings said. "Maybe I was supposed to play for Coach Davis all along. It just took me a while to get here."