Cunningham Talks Walnut Ridge Sports and Beyond. By: Brad Davis
Jersie Cunningham is a multisport athlete for the Walnut Ridge Bobcats, and that experience is helping him as he is becoming a popular small business owner. As football season ends for Walnut Ridge, Cunningham will make the quick transition to basketball court. For him, it’ s something that he is used to and has done most of his life.“ Being from a smaller school and being an athlete, you are needed in every area of sports you can be,” Cunningham described.“ Also playing all sports from such a young age taught me how to juggle both.”
He admits there are differences that he has to adjust to.“ By how your body ' s conditioning changes, they are two totally different sports and being able to be well conditioned for both challenges me,” Cunningham said.“ Also going from having 11 guys on the field to five you have to be certain that the other 4 in the culture want to get the job down as well. There is no break with our football team making a run in state. It is right to basketball after that sometimes closer to mid-season and how you have to make a big jump to locking in on the court and not the grid iron.”
The Bobcat senior does feel that he has learned something from each sport.“ I feel that football has taught me that being a leader in that sport calls for more,” he explained.“ From the little details of every play and where everyone is and their assignments, it’ s a tough task but one I would never give up. With basketball the score is changing constantly and that calls for always having a positive attitude and that’ s one thing I think I do very well in keeping the team ' s morale up. Football is more about staying at your top speed for the whole play and not slowing down, while basketball is a lot of short runs that are also at a fast rate.”
As for his role, Cunningham doesn’ t feel his leadership role changes at all.“ I am a leader in both and am put in a position to lead so it doesn’ t change much being that they are very important roles,” the senior Bobcat explained. No matter what, leave it all on the court or field and have fun with the guys beside me.”
With another successful football season complete, Cunningham will now turn his attention to hoops and his goals for this season.“ It was rough if you looked at the record but at the end we won when it truly counted,” he said.“ Being able to get the win over Manilla was something no one expected and being at Harrisburg gym made it all the louder from the fans.”