Kaden Tennyson is a high school senior who works at an ice cream shop to make a few bucks to help pay for Uber drives and a veterinarian bill for his injured dog. He’s also a shotputter and discus thrower at Riverside Notre Dame.
He was suffering from a strained tendon in his right ankle resting at home when his ice cream manager called with a request for assistance.
“It was insanely busy,” said Tennyson, who is 6 feet 6 and 300 pounds. “I took an Advil and served birthday cake, brownie, chocolate fudge.”
There was no way Tennyson wouldn’t answer the call for duty.
“It’s my first job as a teenager,” he said. “It’s good for job experience.”
Tennyson never made it to the Southern Section track preliminaries after winning the league title.
“Every throw, it hurt badly,” he said. “I wanted to push through it.”
He made the decision to protect his future, so he passed on a chance to compete at Saturday’s Southern Section track championships.
He’s enjoyed much success in high school, on and off the playing field. He was back-to-back Skyline League champion. His best efforts were 51-10 in the shotput and 145-7 in the discus. He was admitted to 19 colleges. He was recognized by the Riverside Hall of Fame as a top scholar-athlete. He’s a two-time Principal’s Honor Roll recipient.
And yet, all that pales in comparison to what he has been forced to endure while his mother, Janet, twice battled cancer, affecting everyone emotionally and financially.
“As a mother, it’s been humbling to watch the kind of young man he has become through adversity,” Janet said in a letter she wrote honoring her son.
Fighting cancer is exhausting for everyone involved.
“We didn’t a spend a lot of time together, “ Kaden said. “She was mainly asleep. I wanted to be strong at home and not cry to make her sad. My friends helped a lot.”
Some of the senior activities Kaden hoped to participate in were lost for financial reasons, like going to the prom with his girlfriend.
He’s focused on the future.
“One of my dreams is to raise my own successful family,” he said. “In order to do that, you need to be successful yourself.”
He’ll take his 3.8 grade-point average and giant body to study buisness and compete in track and field at UC Irvine.
His mother is recovering. He intends to walk at graduation on June 5.
His mother says, “Kaden’s journey reflects resilience, family, perseverance and the reality that the effects of a serious illness don’t end when treatment does.”
Kaden’s smile continues. Maybe it’s because he works at an ice cream shop.
Asked he if he gets to sample the products, he said, “Sometimes.”
That’s a happy ending on any day.
