DE Cumbie preparing for spring

Morris (Ill.) junior defensive end prospect Jamie Cumbie (6-foot-7, 255 pounds) has wrapped up his college junior day visits this winter, and Cumbie is now preparing for his spring baseball season and more.

"I'm pretty much done checking out the college junior days," Cumbie said. "I'm already practicing for my baseball season at school."

Cumbie however will make an unofficial visit to Clemson in late March.

"My brother is getting married in North Carolina in late March, so we are going to take a day and check out Clemson for an unofficial visit. I've been wanting to get to know the coaches at Clemson better, and this is a really good chance for me to get that done."

Cumbie continues to draw recruiting interest and hand-written mail from college across the country.

"I've started to get several hand-written letters from USC, Oregon and Iowa. I've also been getting more and more recruiting interest from several ACC schools. The mail has been coming in pretty heavily from several different schools."

Cumbie has also comes to accept the fact that he will play for a new head coach in 2005 at Morris High School. Veteran head coach Dan Darlington announced last week that he was not retained at Morris and will coach at the brand-new Plainfield North High School in August.

"I'm really happy that Coach Darlington has made a move that he's happy with. It was very hard for him as well as for us to talk about him leaving Morris. I truly feel that he will do great things at Plainfield North and that they will put together a dynasty with Coach D. It definitely tough not getting to finish my high school career not playing for Coach D at Morris, and I wished that he could stay. We'll just need to suck it up and play, that's been everyone's take on the whole issue. We're still the Morris Redskins and we'll still play with that pride."

Cumbie currently has early scholarship offers from Notre Dame, Clemson, Illinois, Northwestern and Purdue.