Dad urges support for autistic son during run

Cameron Leachman (center) hopes to run cross country and track with  encouragement from his dad, John Leachman and mom, Lisa Leachman.
Cameron Leachman (center) hopes to run cross country and track with encouragement from his dad, John Leachman and mom, Lisa Leachman.

BENTONVILLE — A community of runners is showing its support for an autistic teenager bent on making his junior high cross-country team this fall.

Cameron Leachman, 13, of Bentonville is on the verge of making a 2-mile run, an achievement that would qualify him to join the cross-country team at Fulbright Junior High School, where he’ll be a seventh-grader this fall. Most junior high cross-country races are 2 miles long.

John Leachman, Cameron’s father, invited the community to come along and run with Cameron to celebrate the milestone.

More than 20 people have promised to show up at 10 a.m. today at Fulbright Junior High School, 5303 SW Bright Road, where they’ll embark on the 2-mile jaunt, he said.

Some of Cameron’s supporters have produced a T-shirt for those participating.

“It’s kind of symbolic of the running community in Northwest Arkansas,” John Leachman said. “You want to be the fastest, but you want to see others succeed, too.”

Anyone interested in running is welcome to join them, he said.

John Leachman has been an avid runner for years. He and Cameron have been running together five or six times per week for about the past month, gradually increasing Cameron’s endurance to the 2-mile mark.

Leachman wrote in a recent Facebook post that he once worried his son’s autism would prevent the two of them from doing the kinds of things fathers and sons often enjoy together, such as playing sports.

“Who knew years later our worlds would collide with a shared love for running,” Leachman wrote.

Cameron regularly approaches his father with the phrase, “You want running?” That’s Cameron’s way of telling him he wants to be asked the same question, a habit Cameron has had since he was old enough to talk, John Leachman said.

The T-shirts for today’s run feature that quote — “You want running?” — and two sets of footsteps, one large and one small, to represent father and son. There’s also the logo for Rush Running Co., a running store with three locations in Northwest Arkansas.

Mike Rush, owner of Rush Running, said a friend had suggested making a shirt just for Cameron. Rush decided to “blow it up” and pay for 50 shirts. Chuck Cates, another friend of Leachman’s, designed the logo.

The community support for Cameron indicates the kind of passion people have for running, Rush said.

“It shows that running is for everybody. It doesn’t matter whether you have disabilities or anything,” Rush said. “If things go rough, you’ve got this core group of runners that all really share this love, this passion for running. And we’ll support each other to the end.”

John and Cameron Leachman set out for a run through their neighborhood together at 12:30 p.m. recently, right after Cameron returned from summer school. The temperature was above 90 degrees. They ran 1.8 miles.

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