Competition Isn’t Everything

Corbin Eddings, 51, Lumber River Senior Games

Corbin Eddings starting participating in Senior Games for a chance to compete, but he continues to participate because he realized Senior Games is about so much more. He got involved with Senior Games last year when the Lumber River Senior Games Local Coordinator reached out to his State Farm Agency as a potential sponsor for the games. “I was looking into the sponsorship and I just started reading more and more and I was like, wait a minute,  I think I'm old enough for this!” he says. 

Corbin participated in a lot of events his first year, and won quite a few medals, but his favorite is swimming. He has always enjoyed swimming, but never got the opportunity to compete until Senior Games. ”My parents home place was probably a hundred yards off the bank of the Lumbee River and I spent my childhood swimming in the river. With the current, against the current, it didn't matter, I just loved swimming,” he says.  As He got older he started going to the pool at the local Cultural Center. After a while he started lifeguarding before becoming the Director there. “I've always been around it and I just loved swimming. Nothing competitive, nothing formal, I just loved swimming.”

As the youngest of 4 kids in his family, and having spent time in the Marine Corps, Corbin has developed a competitive streak. That competitiveness is what first drove him to compete in Senior Games. “I said, ‘This is my opportunity to compete and’, now don’t hold this against me, ‘hopefully dominate’.” But he quickly realized that wasn’t all Senior Games had to offer. “You realize it is so much more than winning a medal. I went there and my focus was on winning, and for probably the first couple of events I was focused on myself. But after just a little while you start looking around and you start watching and it's like, man, this is awesome!” He enjoyes watching others participate just as much as he enjoys competing. “It's fun! if you can't pull for a 90-year-old person swimming the length of a pool against another 90-year-old person, something's wrong,” he says. “You'll get into it you'll find yourself yelling and cheering and screaming and pulling for people to finish.”

The participants in the older age groups are an inspiration for Corbin. He recalls watching the 90+ age group compete in the 100 yard dash his first year. “Watching Senator Danny Britt’s 90-year-old grandmother Laura Blount make it down those hundred yards, and then turn around to greet the lady she was competing with, it makes you realize it means much more than winning a race. You start saying, ‘Am I doing what I need to do to be there?’ I want to be the kind of person that inspires somebody like that.”

His advice to anyone thinking about being a part of Senior Games? Be there! “Regardless of what way you want to be there, just be there! Whether you want to be a spectator, or if you want to volunteer, or if you want to compete, folks get something out of senior games regardless of what they're doing,” he says. 

He is a proud Ambassador for Lumber River Senior Games, and he enjoys getting other people involved with Senior Games. “It's also the good feeling of being able to invite other folks and bring other people into it,” he says. “It's good knowing I played a part in other people enjoying Senior Games.” Corbin has been married to his wife Misha for 25 years, and they have two sons. He currently serves on the Lumbee Tribal Council.