Remember when you had to wait to hear back from all the colleges that you applied to and you checked the mail almost every day? Well if you thought that wait was excruciating, wait until you hear the story of men’s basketball player David Kummer.
Kummer’s five-year college career of has been full of patience and sitting and waiting. This has been caused by that thing that athletes dread the most, injuries.
It is a wonder why DU athletics has yet to name the training room after Kummer after all the time he has spent there.
Forget about naming a room after Kummer.
How about the NCAA listening up and letting him play one more season. Yeah that’s right one more season?
Kummer has been at DU for five seasons and you are probably thinking isn’t that enough? But, no, it is not, not the five seasons that Kummer has had to endure.
Let’s start in 2003-04 when Kummer sat out his freshman year as a red shirt. Then the real fun began in 2004-05 when the Cedar Rapids, Iowa native suffered a knee injury and played a total of just 95 minutes in 13 games which is an average of 7.3 minutes.
Kummer finally found out what a full season was like in 2005-06 when he played in every game and made 12 starts while averaging 6.2 points per game and 3.8 rebounds.
Disaster struck again in 2005-06 when Kummer fell to another knee injury and missed the entire season.
This season Kummer was excited to finish his college career with a bang and play a full season and experience the new direction by Head Coach Joe Scott. It all came crashing down in a home game on Jan. 13 when Kummer suffered yet another injury. This time a fractured right fibula.
And, yet again, Kummer sat on the sideline in street clothes watching and not playing.
Now Kummer is sitting and watching again. This time not a basketball game, but the games of the NCAA committee. An outcome that will decide if Kummer will get one more season of playing college ball.
“The current status is that we are in the process of appealing the NCAAs ruling regarding my application for a medical hardship. The timeframe for the appeal is up in the air, but we are still fighting for it,” said Kummer yesterday.
All college athletes are allowed four years of eligibility along with one red shirt season. Kummer has played a total of 60 games in his five years at DU, just about two full seasons of basketball.
Sure the NCAA rules state that no one should be on a roster for six seasons, but come on, three injuries. With all the talk the last few seasons of athletes leaving early and not finishing their education the NCAA should be happy that someone is asking to stick around for a sixth season. Most professional athletes don’t even play six seasons in the pros. To make even more of a case, this application for another year was started by Kummer before his third injury. Whatever decision is made Kummer is ready to swallow the answer.
“My case falls outside their normal criteria so granting me an additional year would require them to grant anyone else with a similar case to mine, so they have to consider how their ruling in each case affects future cases.”
Regardless of the decision, Kummer will still remain at DU and complete his master’s in higher education.
“While I would be quite disappointed if I was not granted an additional year of competition, it is something I have had to prepare for since the beginning of the process. Everyone (me, coaches, administrators) knew going in there were no guarantees at the start, so it has always been an option that it might not get granted.”
While the waiting game continues for Kummer he is hoping the NCAA allows him to suit up in the crimson and gold for just one more season. A season of injury free basketball.
