Alexis Cummings is a sophomore on the swimming and diving team at Cerritos College who is looking to make a splash in the last season of her collegiate athletic career.
She started swimming when she was in the fourth grade and continued up to her freshman year of high school.
She had to stop because her school at the time didn’t have a swim team so this caused her to take a three-year break from the sport.
She started training again with the Cerritos team during her first semester at the college and was part of a school team for the first time in a few years with the 2023 team.
Cummings said taking this gap period caused her a bit of physical challenges once she started competing again.
“I definitely was not in the shape that I used to be,” she said, “my times almost doubled I think when I first started training back in swimming.”
She specializes in freestyle stroke and breaststroke for the swimming portion and is the only diver so far out of the men’s and women’s teams for the college.
She is only in her second year of diving but it has been one of her biggest accomplishments around the sport as of yet.
“It is probably the hardest thing that I’ve ever done in my entire life,” Cummings said.
She explains how the physical part of diving isn’t what held her back, but it’s the mental aspect that took a toll on her when she first started.
“I have a fear of falling and so repetitively falling out of the sky basically is harder to get over than I thought it was going to be when I started,” she said.
There are six categories of diving and although she was able to compete last season, she was never able to get down the last dive which is the reverse dive.
Cummings went on to proudly state how she finally was able to complete the dive. She said, “This season I got it the week before our first meet of the season.”
Outside of the sport, Cummings feels like her biggest accomplishment has to be her progression with her major.
She said she has always had a small passion for art but she never thought she could be good enough.
“Being able to see my progression from last year to this year it’s a lot to me,” Cummings said.
Coaches, family and friends made through the sport and art all come together to make a huge line of support for Cummings as she navigates her way through life.
In her free time, she has been big on reading lately as well as rock climbing. Although right now this extra sport under her belt is for fun, she thinks about being able to compete in the future.
Cummings is nearing the end of her tenure at Cerritos College and has already accepted admission to Cal State University Fullerton.
She will transfer for the Fall 2024 semester and continue studying studio arts and ceramics at the four-year school but since they only have a water polo team, her collegiate athletic career is coming to an end after the 2024 season at Cerritos.
“I’m planning to still compete dive wise with the Los Alamitos Dive Club,” Cummings said.
