It was 10 years ago that the then-recently retired 62-year-old James E. Cummings Jr. picked up a basketball and entered the recesses of IM Sports-West for the first time.
Since then, the now 72-year-old makes his way to the IM Sports buildings on MSU’s campus nearly every day with a huge smile on his face and a basketball underarm.
“Do you guys play basketball?” the 1965 alumnus asks a group of students upon entering one of the courts at IM Sports-West. “How about a game of ‘horse?’”
Cummings is nearly unbeatable at the game. Ten years of countless hours spent in the gym to what’s probably amounted to hundreds of thousands of shots has given him the ability to drain buckets from all over the court.
But Cummings will play anything — 3-on-3, 5-on-5, one-on-one games to 100 — and he’ll play anyone, from former professionals to people from all over the world.
“My goal is to play everyone who comes into these gyms,” Cummings said. “I want to play every one of them in a game of horse by the time they graduate.”
But one day Cummings will never forget is Dec. 18, 2011.
There was something different about it — something serious that almost forced Cummings’ basketball playing days to come to an end.
Because on that day, after a full court 5-on-5 game in Gym 2 at IM Sports-West, Cummings fell to the floor in sudden cardiac arrest.
Saving a life
Toufic Jildeh had just graduated from MSU in fall 2011 and was on his way to medical school at Wayne State University in Detroit. On Dec. 18, 2011, Jildeh and a friend were doing what they liked best — play hoops at IM Sports-West.
After a 5-on-5 game ended, Jildeh and several of the participants left the gym to get a drink from a fountain in the hallway. Upon retu
With most everyone standing around not knowing what to do, Jildeh — who knew CPR from an introductory first aid class for a job — sprung into action and administered CPR on Cummings, while another student trained in first aid, Xavier Williams, was on standby.
Jildeh did compressions on Cummings’ chest while Williams performed mouth-to-mouth resuscitation with the plan on doing so until an ambulance arrived. But for whatever reason, that ambulance — situated at a fire department less than a half mile away — didn’t arrive for another 15 minutes.
Eventually the ambulance did come, though. A defibrillator was used and Cummings was rushed to nearby Sparrow Hospital, where Dr. Carlos Fernandez found Cummings’ left anterior descending artery completely obstructed.
A stent was put in Cummings’ heart and he remained on life support for a couple of days, Fernandez said. However, Cummings quickly recovered and his heart functions returned to normal. But if it weren’t for Jildeh, Williams or the defibrillator, Fernandez said Cummings likely wouldn’t have survived.
“Heart attacks are not uncommon (for men of his age group),” said Fernandez, adding that heart disease is the leading cause of death for senior men. “Unfortunately it happened to him, but fortunately it happened around a group of people and they were able to take care of him.”
Some months later, Cummings returned to the gyms at MSU. Still trying to piece together the events of the day of his heart attack, Cummings knew there were first responders who saved his life, but had no way of finding them.
But one day, when Cummings was pacing the sidelines, just by the chance of the day, Jildeh — who grew up in the East Lansing area — was back home during a few off days from Wayne State.
When Jildeh saw Cummings in the gym, he immediately rushed up to him to ask if he was OK and the two began recounting the details of Cummings’ heart attack with each other. Upon hearing Jildeh speak, Cummings was amazed and asked how he knew the story so well.
“I told him it was me (who administered CPR),” Jildeh said. “We’ve been friends ever since.”
Not about basketball
At first glance, Cummings doesn’t have the makings of a basketball star. He’s in terrific shape for a 72-year-old man, but one semester of basketball in the late 1950s at Cass Tech High School in Detroit is the only organized experience he has.
The mechanics of his shot are another thing. He lifts the ball over his head and flicks it towards the rim with one hand.
However, a good majority of his shots end the same way — perfect rotation, perfect arc on the shot.
Swish. Nothing but net.
That’s when the jaws of the youthful college students hit the floor. Get him warmed up and as Cummings says, “I can play all day, all night.”
Of those who have seen and played with Cummings include Dujuan Wiley, a former MSU and overseas basketball player who nowadays spends his time as the intramural coordinator at IM Sports-West. Even he has fell victim to Cummings in a game of horse.
But for Cummings, it’s not about basketball. It’s about the relationships he’s built in the gym throughout the years.
“Basketball is universal, like music,” Cummings said. “As long as you love the game and play the game, you can all get along.”
That’s the thing about Cummings. Watch him stroll around the gym for a few minutes and if the many smiles, high-fives and the “nice shots” don’t say enough about the guy, the staff and students definitely will.
“He’s a real genuine guy,” said Williams, a 2013 alumnus. “He really cares about MSU students and always asks how you’re doing in school.”
In some cases, Cummings gets to know a student through their years of college and beyond. To this day, Cummings has done his best to keep in touch with Jildeh and even took him to dinner last fall.
And there isn’t a person Cummings won’t extend his friendship to. He’s played basketball with students from all over the world. Take finance junior Zhouxiaoxiong Qi for example, a native of China who’s played alongside Cummings for the last three years.
The two have gotten so close that their friendship has extended outside the gym. When most of MSU’s students left campus for spring break one year, and Qi stayed back in East Lansing for the week, Cummings bought some tickets and took Qi to the final women’s basketball game of the year.
Economics junior Ervin Novas, a native of the Dominican Republic, is another student who’s gotten to know Cummings and has even come to view him as an inspiration.
“He’s an inspiration for young people to, not only in basketball, but to prove that age is not a factor,” Novas said. “You should always strive for the best even when you have obstacles. ... he had a heart attack and all those things have not prevented him from (playing basketball).”
Sharing his story
It’s a Wednesday morning three years and four months after his heart attack, and Cummings has once again made his way to IM Sports-West. As he steps into the very same room he once fell to the floor in sudden cardiac arrest, Cummings notices a group of students gathered on one end of the gym. So Cummings, outgoing and friendly like he normally is, walks over and asks who they are. A teaching assistant tells him they are at a first aid and personal safety class, as many of the students behind him practice CPR.
It’s about as fitting as it gets and Cummings immediately takes the opportunity to share his story. Having gone through the experience of a heart attack, he knows the importance of defibrillators and having people trained in CPR.
Cummings feels that in order for freshmen at MSU to become Spartans, it should be required of them to take a first aid class. It’s all part of him feeling that if his story can help save someone down the road, it can make a world of difference.
There’s no telling how much longer Cummings will continue to come to the gyms at MSU. But he doesn’t drink, he doesn’t smoke and hasn’t eaten junk food in years, and when he got a La-Z-Boy 10 years ago, he gave it away in two days for fear it would keep him from being active.
“It’s a real joy for me to be able to play basketball with all my fellow Spartans,” Cummings said. “Even if there is a large age gap.”
There are days Cummings stays in the gym for as many as five to 10 hours. But even at the tail end of these hours, Cummings is still as upbeat and energetic as ever.
It’s moments like these where Cummings looks at the ball he carries to the gym every day and smiles at the number scrawled on the side: 72.
