Heath Cummings is entering his 15th year as the head baseball coach at CLC. Coach Cummings has had 160 student athletes move on to four-year universities, each of them receiving an athletic scholarship or some type of academic scholarship. The Lancers have won 150 games in the last 5 years.
The Lancers had 1 All Conference player, 3rd baseman Angel Berrios.
Coach Cummings’ main goal at CLC is to develop his players individually. Coach Cummings works with them one-on-one to get the best out of them. Coach Cummings does not believe in a cookie cutter approach to coaching. To him every student athlete must be approached as an individual with unique talents and coaching needs. Coach Cummings has coached 60 All-Conferences Players, 4 All-Conference Players of Year, 5 All-Conference Pitcher of the Year, 19 ALL-Region Players, 6 All- Region Gold Glove Winners, 1 All-American. Coach Cummings overall record in the past 14 years at CLC is 340 -282.
Coach Cummings played baseball at Zion-Benton High School for one of the top high school baseball coaches in Illinois, Gary Bereiter. Coach Cummings had this to say about coach Bereiter “Coach B played a huge roll in my life, he helped guide me through the process of coaching. If it wasn’t for coach B, I would not be the coach I am today or the person!” Coach Cummings went on to the College of Lake County to study and play baseball (93-94), where he was coached by the legendary Gene Hanson. During Coach Cummings sophomore year at CLC, he was an All-Conference player, All-State player along with being the Team Captain of the 1994 Region IV State Championship Team. Coach Cummings transferred to Erskine College (DII) in South Carolina on a baseball scholarship. He finished his playing career at Erskine, during his time at Erskine College he earned the team MVP honors his junior year.
Coach Cummings started his coaching career at Zion-Benton High School in 1997 and remained on staff through 2010. He began as the freshman coach and finished as the head varsity baseball coach during his last three years at ZBTHS. Coach Cummings also coached a summer Colt 16U team for six years. This team qualified for the AABC state tournament. In 2001 and 2002 they took second place both years. In 2003 they took third place. In 2009 his 16U colt team won the AABC State Title tournament. The combined team records were 98-39 for the Colt team. At Zion-Benton, his combined team record was 324-244.
Heath Cummings earned his BA in Project Management. He also serves at the Student-Athlete Academic Success and Compliance Coordinator at CLC. Heath has been married to his high school sweetheart, Sara, for 29 years. They have a son Troy and a daughter Molly.
