Sarah Sumpter, champion runner at Healdsburg High, UC Davis, dies at 25

A state championship runner at Healdsburg High School and record-setter at UC Davis, Sarah Sumpter beat an eating disorder and competed in collegiate athletics while taking chemotherapy drugs. Still, the quiet competitor shied away from the accolades.

Sumpter, 25, died Monday at her parents’ Cloverdale home surrounded by family. Brain cancer first diagnosed in 2010 returned last year, expanding further than it had five years ago.

Coaches, family and friends remembered her Monday as an “indomitable spirit” whose strength and courage demonstrated lessons far beyond those from a classroom or sports competition.

“She fought her brain tumor the way she approached anything, at full tilt,” said Drew Wartenburg, Sumpter’s running coach at UC Davis for more than five years.

“I’ll always remember the way she chose to live life in the face of adversity, without changing a thing and never wanting special considerations or favors,” he said. “In an endearing way, Sarah had a hard time understanding why people wanted to make a big deal about what she was doing. She was humble by nature.”

Services are pending. A GoFundMe account set up by friends earlier this month to help with medical expenses will be used to create a legacy in Sumpter’s honor, said her mother, Shawn Sumpter of Cloverdale.

“We’re not sure what it will be yet. But it will help other runners, other running programs, schools and their athletics,” she said. “Because she learned, and we learned, about how important the team and the athletic family is to developing people.”

Sumpter is survived by her parents, Shawn and Brian of Cloverdale; her brother, Joshua, a UC Davis student; grandfather Richard Williams McArthur; and uncles Dave Sumpter of Healdsburg and Gary Sumpter of Napa.

Sumpter enjoyed running in elementary school, her mother said, and began team running in a junior high running club.

She burst onto the competitive running scene in 2006, when, in just her first season of cross country, Sumpter finished 11th in the California Interscholastic Federation state cross country championship meet.

The following season she became a state champion, winning the 2007 CIF Division IV cross country championship her senior year. She was The Press Democrat’s All-Empire cross country runner of the year for the 2007-08 season.

“She never wanted to be a competitive person until she was a runner, because she didn’t want to compete against anyone,” her mother said. “She wanted to do her best, which is why running fit her so well. She could celebrate other runners’ triumphs as well.”

In 2008, Sumpter went public with her eating disorder. While trying to shave seconds off her race times, she had become obsessive about her weight. The 5-foot-1 teen once weighed as little as 94 pounds, the bones in her back showing through her skin.

She shared her story in The Press Democrat, hoping to help other girls and young women.

“I don’t want anyone to go through what I went through,” she said at the time. “Don’t beat yourself up if you don’t keep improving your times from week to week. Cut yourself some slack. Don’t forget to enjoy life. Is it worth it (not eating)? Is it worth the risk of you literally threatening your own life?”

With help, Sumpter’s health improved, and she attended UC Davis, where she became only the second freshman in Big West Conference history to win the women’s cross country championship. She was also named the Big West Women’s Athlete of the Year.

In the fall of 2009, she finished third in her first collegiate race and was the Aggies’ top finisher at the Stanford Invitational and Indiana State Pre-National meets. Sumpter went on to win the Big West championship and placed 22nd at the NCAA West Regional tournament.

Then, on Sept. 10, 2010, one day before her first cross country meet of the season, Sumpter was diagnosed with brain cancer. Surgery removed much of the tumor, but a portion too difficult to remove remained and was treated with drugs.

“They encourage patients to walk after surgery,” Shawn Sumpter said. “At our first six-week checkup, they didn’t know whether to be appalled or shocked, or what, to find out she was walking 10 to 12 miles a day.

“She said, ‘If I can do it, I’m going to do it.’ That’s the way she carried things through.”

Not long after that, Sumpter - whom teammates dubbed “Stump” - set Davis’ 10K track record while taking chemotherapy drugs.

In the classroom, Sumpter made the Big West Conference All-Academic rolls every year, and was chosen as Davis’ representative for the Big West Scholar-Athlete of the Year in 2012.

After graduating, Sumpter continued to run, expanded her focus to half-marathons in 2014, and began training for a full marathon this year in hopes of qualifying for the U.S. Olympic Trials.

Sumpter last competed this summer before her condition began to deteriorate.

Montgomery High School running coach Val Sell knew Sumpter since she began running at Healdsburg High.

“I watched her transform from an average runner to one of the best runners in the state,” Sell said. “She’s got to be one of the most dedicated women I’ve ever known. … She was always upbeat; even if she was tired or down, she never showed it.”

In July, Sumpter began feeling numbness in her left hand and foot. The family knew what that meant before the MRI confirmed it.

“The activity had increased to where it was beginning to involve the brain stem,” her mother said. “Activity showed up on the left side of the brain where it never had before. There was nothing else they could throw at it without making her sicker.”

Earlier this month, her former cross country teammates dubbed Sept. 10 - the fifth anniversary of her diagnosis - “Stump Day.”

Her former coach Wartenburg said Stump’s influence will continue.

“It’s sad and touching and reaffirming to see the ripple effect,” he said. “Her diagnosis, then her comeback, then today, the ripple that her story and her life caused and the number of folks she was able to touch. It was something she did not choose but something she embraced over time.”

You can reach Staff Writer Lori A. Carter at 521-5470 or lori.carter@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @loriacarter.