Cochrane High School (CHS) Cobras senior lineman Dale Cummings is heading south to play university football.
The 17-year-old Cremona resident has signed a letter of intent to join the Montana State University-Northern Lights on a scholarship and will play in the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) Frontier Conference for the Havre-based university. The Lights play an 11-game schedule beginning in late August. He’ll make part of his preparations for the jump to U.S. collegiate play by joining Cobras Kyle Moortgat (receiver) and Scott McMillan (linebacker) on the Football Alberta Senior Bowl South squad. (Story, page 45.)
To say he’s anxious to get his U.S. college football career started is an understatement.
“Very excited,” Cummings said. “I want to start playing right now.”
But the 6-foot-1, 330-pound lineman will have to wait a couple of months. He has high-school graduation and the Senior Bowl to keep him busy until the Lights kick-off their season Aug. 30 at Montana Tech in Butte.
He’ll be studying criminal justice at Montana State-Northern with an eye to becoming a fish and wildlife officer. While not a “full-ride” scholarship covering all of Cummings’s needs in Montana, his tuition and some of his housing is granted in the agreement.
He’s still marvelling at the speed at which it all happened.
“It was really fast,” he said. “I just sent my film out to them. I didn’t even expect it. I was just sitting at home and the coach gave me a call and he told me he’d love me to come down there for a visit. We went down there for a visit and asked about scholarships and stuff. A couple of weeks later, he sent me a scholarship in the mail and a letter of intent and now I’m going to go down there to play some football.”
Cummings is quick to credit the CHS Cobras football program for his success.
“The past three years of me going to Cochrane High really helped me prepare for a situation like this. If I wouldn’t have come to Cochrane High, I know I wouldn’t have had the opportunities I’ve had.”
Cobras line coach Jim Forrest has a deep dossier on the large-bodied kid from Cremona. He expected nothing less from his top senior lineman.
“Dale has come a long way from the young guy I first coached in bantams a number of years ago,” Forrest said. “He obviously has the raw, physical tools and body type to be a next-level player. But in the last couple of years he has also bought into the need for the off-season weight and agility training that is absolutely required at the level he’s going to.”
The lineman who played both offensive and defensive line in high school will line up on the offensive line for the Lights. He just wants to kick it off.
“It’s a great town,” he said of the Montana hamlet just six hours drive from his Cremona home.
“They’re very big on their football.”
