Zero Star The Cam Ward Story Season 1 Episode 1

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Transcript

00:00.

00:14Tomorrow?

00:15Oh yes! First-comer.

00:17Nah, I came to my suit.

00:19Could you wear this for me?

00:20No, I'm just in your shirt.

00:22I'm not squatting.

00:23Hold on, you want my hat backwards?

00:24Nahla, where my suitcases go?

00:26Over here, why?

00:28Look in there, I should have another pair of white socks.

00:29I'm going to leave in my 20s.

00:32We're going to be down there until they're going to leave.

00:35I guess anybody's going over here.

00:38Yeah, over here.

00:39Now, you all ready?

00:52Green Bay, Wisconsin, the home of the 2025 NFL Draft.

00:55It's the day we've all been waiting for.

00:58We're just moments away from hearing the Tennessee Titans are on the clock.

01:01The commissioner, Roger Goodell, kicking off our coverage here of the draft.

01:04It's time to get the show started.

01:06Are you ready?

01:07Yes!

01:11We have an estimated 250,000 people who have come here tonight.

01:16The draft is open.

01:17The Titans are on the clock.

01:19We're the first pick in the 2025 NFL Draft.

01:24The Tennessee Titans collect.

01:26He's on the clock.

01:27We're the next pick in the 2020 NFL Draft.

01:29We'll go back to the league.

01:30We'll be back to the team.

01:31We've got to play tonight.

01:32We've got to play tonight.

01:33We'll be back to the league.

01:34The team's playing tonight.

01:35We'll be back today.

01:36We've got to play tonight.

01:37We've got to play tonight.

01:38We'll be back tonight.

01:39On offense now we're going to throw it for the first time looks one way back the other

01:53and we're going to take off.

02:02Fairy tales are pretty uncommon these days.

02:05In college football we're recruiting sites or tracking players from middle school onward

02:11they're basically impossible. But for a kid named Cameron Anthony Ward what is impossible?

02:18From zero star to number one pick in the NFL draft. Cameron Ward quarterback Miami. Cameron

02:24Ward defied all odds and it all started in a small town West Columbia, Texas. Welcome to West

02:32Columbia, Texas. The first capital of the Republic of Texas. We are a very proud historic city but

02:40never more proud than of Cameron Ward and his story and his success on the football field. Cameron has

02:49inspired so many young athletes. His story is a story of inspiration. It's a story of good work ethic.

02:59It steps up, there's a flip toss. South Texas you don't get a lot of the credit

03:03that some of the inner city kids get, the Dallas kids get. But you know it's big time, it's big time

03:09football in Texas from 1A, 2A all the way up to 6A. Cameron was a special young man however.

03:18The head delivers nice. Just from the birth, I mean he always loved the ball. He was just an athletic

03:25young boy who always wanted to play ball doing something. He's very active. Cameron's a very

03:30respectful young man. He's friends with everyone. He respects his elders. He respects his peers.

03:37No one's no better than he is. I think that he's a team player. He's always had leadership roles.

03:43I grew up with basketball in my hands first thing. I played youth basketball, junior high,

03:49always got the high school. I was just so, I had that dream just set to make it to the NBA.

03:54Just take basketball as far as I could. Cameron has always played basketball since he was born.

04:01Cameron was probably four years old and started playing youth basketball. He came to me in the

04:07second grade and he wanted to play football. We were deep into AAU basketball. I was like,

04:14why don't you wait a year? Why don't you wait to third grade? So fast forward a year, he came home

04:19from school with a form. I was like, well, what is that? Well, this is a football form. And I'm like,

04:25you don't need to play football. And he's like, well, you told me a year ago that wait a year.

04:30Okay, well, I got to keep my word. But he first started playing football in the third grade.

04:35I ended up transitioning to quarterback. My second year playing with my dad, he started his

04:40own football league. He was my coach. My dad, he was a high school quarterback at Van Vlake High

04:44School. He was the first one that taught me to throw a football, taught me how to throw a spiral,

04:47how to hold the football, everything. I feel like that's where, you know, the story started.

04:52To say Cameron Ward was a workhorse from day one was an understatement. But that dedication and drive

04:59came directly from his family. A lot of people see what he does on the field now,

05:04even when he was in Pop Warner, Tri-City Cougars and Columbia Little Necks. You see all of that,

05:10but you don't see the backyard stuff, the stuff that he puts in outside. But I did. From being

05:15outside with my dad having football nets, and I'm chasing him with shoes, throwing stuff at him,

05:20getting away to maneuver, to get out of the pocket and throw was just something that I think,

05:25if it wasn't for that time in our lives, he wouldn't be where he is today.

05:29Well, we think competitiveness, I mean, is very important. Not from the point that you always

05:36have to win a game, but if you lose a game, you have to learn something from it. Because I think

05:41it carries over to life. He was very easy to coach. He picked it up really quick. I attribute a lot of

05:49that to his family behind him. They haven't missed a game. A lot of parents, you know,

05:56whether they're on business, a lot of other kids' parents, they'll have to miss a game here or there,

06:00but my parents haven't missed one of my games, whether it's basketball or football. Even when I

06:04did track and field throwing the discies, they've always showed up to each and every one of my track

06:08meets. I know my family will do anything for me. They're the reason why I make this point in my life

06:12right now, you know, just because the sacrifices that they made for me financially, time-wise,

06:18with every sport. I mean, I would go to IMG Academy every year in Florida. Since I was probably,

06:24I think it was third or fourth grade, we started going there, and I would do basketball, football.

06:29They just invested so much money to get me to where I'm at. I knew he had talent, and I knew his mom

06:37and daddy had spent time and effort and money taking him all over the country for basketball camp.

06:45Chantelle remembers going. I remember her in junior high telling me how many

06:50trips she had made, and she was tired of it, because we all thought Cameron was destined to be

06:55a basketball star. Were there any NBA players that you look at that give you inspiration for your

07:01football game? Kobe Bryant, for sure. If there was ever a perfect person for Cam to look up to,

07:08the Black Mamba, Kobe Bean Bryant, fit that role. I had a chance to go to his camp twice out here in

07:15California, looking at his highlights, his videos, the motivational podcast that he did. It was

07:21inspirational. I also have a signed jersey from him, so it's just a big old jersey framed in my room

07:26back at home, something that I look at every day. It means a lot, but I think it means a lot to this

07:32world, just the mentality that you have to bring, especially my position, the mentality that you

07:36got to bring on and off the field, whether you're in the work, working, playing, sports, whatever you

07:41do, you just got to bring the same mindset every day. A lot of people don't know, but I was going to

07:46quit football my sophomore year just because I was just so focused on basketball with everything else,

07:53so, you know, that's when I started getting more passionate about it. We were coming back from a

07:57basketball tournament in San Antonio on Sunday evening, and he said that he didn't want to play

08:02football. He wasn't going to go to practice the next day, so the next morning, Calvin went to work. You

08:07know, I hadn't started school yet. Football practice started, so I went in this room. I said,

08:11Cameron, hey, uh, you going to go to practice? No, I said, let me tell you something.

08:17You go today, and if you feel like, because my theory is, if you start something, you're going to

08:23finish it. You don't quit. You're going to finish out that whole season. I said, you go to practice

08:28today because I don't want you to have no regrets. You go to practice. I said, get ready. I'm going to

08:32take you to practice. I said, when you come home today and I pick you up and you say that you don't

08:36like it and you don't want to play no more, then we're done. We're done. So Cameron went on. I took

08:41him. We live in Angleton. I drove him to West Columbia, dropped him off at practice, picked him up that

08:46evening. He didn't say anything. I was like, how was practice? It was fine. Next morning, he said,

08:52Mom, I'm going to practice. You going to practice? Yeah, I'm going. I said, okay,

08:56that means you're starting football. That means no quitting. You're going to finish out the season.

09:01Yes, ma'am. I'm going to finish out the season. My mom, she made me go one more day,

09:04and you know, that one more day, you know, turned into a second day, you know,

09:08end up changing my life for the better. Here we go, man.

09:13Sometimes all you need is one set of eyeballs to catch you at the right time,

09:17to change everything. The transition occurred his junior year in high school. He had a long time

09:27coach there, Steve Van Meter, and he was working out with Cameron one day, and he told him, hey,

09:35he told me, watch this. He put Cameron on the right hash mark. He put a receiver on the left hash mark,

09:42and he had Cameron throw a 15-yard out. And so Coach Van Meter came over to me that day and said,

09:49hey, I coach Chase Griffin, who's a quarterback at UCLA, and he can't make that throw.

09:55Talent is one thing. Being a technician means that you sat down and you technically challenge yourself

10:04to learn every aspect about the game. That's what he done. There's nothing from a quarterback

10:09perspective or how to get the ball, how to deliver the ball that Cam Ward doesn't have and didn't have

10:16back then. When I keep the shoulder closed and keep everything in line, I throw a good ball.

10:22My name is Steve Van Meter. I was a head football coach for 35, 37 years in Texas. I was at Friendswood

10:31for 30, which is where Cam and I, you know, got together. I was probably, I guess, Cam's first

10:40quarterback coach, so to say. The ball coming out of his hands was like a different sound than I'd ever

10:45heard from quarterbacks. And I've had some pretty good quarterbacks that played it, you know, college

10:49level. We worked a lot with his footwork and he came every Saturday or every Sunday, you know,

10:55for all that junior, end of his junior year and then beginning of his senior year. We'd do, you know,

11:01a lot of drills and mechanics because, you know, during the football season, you don't give an

11:06opportunity to work on your mechanics a lot. You have to, you're working on inside hole, outside hole,

11:13you know, Pascal or whatever. So we would do that work. There's times when me and my dad

11:19would go to Coach Van Meter's house and he would just sit down and just walk me through concepts.

11:24He knew I didn't, I didn't have a clue what he was drawing up, nothing like he knew that. And,

11:29you know, for him to take time out of his day to, to do that for me, you know, it was big time because,

11:35you know, he, he just, he got me through the door of where I wanted to go in life. And, you know,

11:40if we wouldn't have had those little meetings with him, drive all the way to his house, have those little

11:44meetings with him, train with him every Sunday, whether it was after a basketball tournament,

11:49I would still go down to Friendswood and train with him if I'm tired or anything. So he, he got me

11:54through the door and, you know, he's, he's a big part. He's a big part of my life.

11:57You want to hit him into the second or third, maybe the fourth step as he comes off his break.

12:05Okay? Coach Van Meter saw something that no one else saw.

12:09He had no problem going to football. Everybody knew that. Yeah, he could have racked up no telling

12:20how many yards, but he learned to be a quarterback in this system here at Columbia High School. It's a

12:28good system. It might not have been the best system for him, but it was a good system. They won a lot of

12:34games. The wing tee offense is a misdirection offense. So typically if the quarterback, in this

12:43case Cam, would go to the right, nine times out of 10, the ball is going to come back to the left.

12:51So the offense he ran in high school, it was very, very good for the first four or five games of each

12:57year until district starts. Because what happens is that a great coach will know that, hey, if

13:04Cameron's going to go to the right, the ball is going to come back to the left and the linebackers

13:09will stay at home and that's what happened. So they would start out each year averaging 340 yards a game

13:16until district started. So that was, that was, those were some of the challenges of, of strictly running

13:23a wing tee offense with limited passing. Even though people write about it and disagree,

13:30I personally think it benefited because he's a full quarterback. You see that he runs the ball,

13:36he handles the ball, he throws the ball. We have three or four passing nets at the house. So when Cam would

13:43get home from practices, we would go in the backyard, throw maybe a couple hundred passes. When he was in

13:50high school on Saturday mornings or Cameron, I would go up to the field and throw passes. So even though

13:56he wasn't throwing the ball, we continued to work on Cam's development because we knew one day it would pay

14:04off. Rolling on first, it's inward to the end zone, caught touchdown. For Cameron, there was no being seen.

14:12In his high school offense, the wing tee, the QB can't show off who he is. And for that, college

14:20football pushed him aside. Watching some of his videos from, from West Columbia and him throwing

14:25the deep ball, it was like, how, how, how are people not seeing this? I don't care if he only is throwing

14:30it 12 times a game. How are you not seeing this arm strength here? It's funny, I'd always ask him, I said,

14:36Cam, why aren't they running you in the wing tee? I said, you're, who's going to tackle your big

14:41ass? I mean, you're six foot 220 and who's going to tackle you? He goes, they don't want to get me

14:45hurt. There's no other quarterback. I said, okay, whatever. That's amazing.

14:53What makes Cam Ward's case so unique in terms of how he's going to navigate the recruiting process

14:57without really throwing the football, coming out of a wing tee offense is unique because he's working

15:02with a quarterback coach to get the time on task. You know, he's throwing the football a lot with the

15:08quarterback coach and trainer, but it's not being shown on film. And to give grace to these recruiters

15:15and coaches like, hey man, yeah, you told me you could do this. We got to see you do it. We can see

15:20you do it in practice. We can see you do it with the trainer, but there's nothing like getting those

15:23game time repetitions. And we're only seeing you throw the football 12 times a game. So obviously in our

15:30eyes in terms of the scout, it's like, hey, that's, that's not enough. So I can't risk my job, my

15:35family, my livelihood on, you know, you throwing the ball 12 times and saying, hey, you working with

15:41a coach. What if you can't hit that route that you're hitting in practice in the game? I need to

15:45see it. So it kind of puts Cam in a tough spot. What they should have focused on was how Cam was

15:51leading his football team each and every year. They got better with him as a starter, had a great senior

15:56season. Obviously the leadership intangibles are there. The raw arm strength is there,

16:03but it takes a coach to really put a stamp on the guy and say, I can work with this guy.

16:08I can develop this guy. He's a good fit for what we want to do. I think he's gonna be a great player.

16:13And this is like the old school way of scouting where a guy may not have been the most polished

16:17prospect, but he had enough raw tools, which is why I feel like Cam going under-recruited and being a

16:23zero star was just laughable. Being overlooked in my shoes, it was a blessing and a curse.

16:30You gotta not only work harder than people, but you have to try and put yourself out there,

16:36from my dad sending emails to D1 schools, even down to D3 and JUCO schools. I know it's hard for me,

16:43but I know it's hard for him because he knows what type of player I was, what I'll be able to do in the

16:48right system and the right guys around me. It was hard just going through high school,

16:54just knowing that I may never get a chance to play on a power five stage, even play on the JUCO stage,

17:01because I had my mind set at that point in time that I was going JUCO. My dad was talking to the

17:07OC at Kilgore College, so I had my mind set on going there and seeing what happens when I get there.

17:13It was frustrating seeing that he wasn't getting recruited because I kept saying I've never seen

17:20a talent like this guy. His arm is unbelievable. I got one offer. As soon as I got that one offer from

17:28UIW, I knew where I was going to offer it. One offer. And in Cameron Anthony Ward's case,

17:35that was all he needed. I remember the first time I met Cam Ward,

17:39was we were warming up for just a normal June camp and one of the hot summer days of San Antonio,

17:47where it's 110 degrees. We're going through just warm ups at the time. And my quarterback coach,

17:52Coach Lefwich runs over to me because, you know, I have a prospect list of 350 guys on it and have

18:00every position on it. And I'm highlighting guys and taking notes of guys I need to go in and put my eyes

18:05on and evaluate because we usually throw out a number of offers after these camps. And Coach

18:10Lefwich runs over and he names off Cam's number that he was associated with in the camp and said,

18:16Hey, Coach, you got to watch this kid throw when you get a chance. And so I highlight him on my sheet

18:21so they're warming up. And so I walk down and Cam's taking a little three-step drop as he warms up and

18:28and the ball's just spinning out there like none other. And the pop that he had, the rotation that

18:33he had was something just when you see a talent like that. And I've been around Patrick Mahomes

18:38for the previous three or four years. So it's not like, Hey, I didn't know it when I saw it. You

18:42know, we had Baker Mayfield, Davis Webb, and Patrick Mahomes were the three quarterbacks I dealt with

18:48the three years prior to that. So right off the bat, it jumps out. And so I'm following him around the

18:55rest of practice. At the end of camp, we always like to do a couple of drills where we put them

18:59through some tough throws. So, you know, we throw a field comeback, you know, we throw some deep post

19:05and throw some, you know, deep out cutting routes that help to throw across the field.

19:09Never forget just coaches kind of look at each other as Cam, you know, knocks out these three

19:14throws like, who the heck is this kid? And why is he here? And why did we not know about him?

19:19The talent was there. It was something that from then on, we started really digging into him.

19:24Started reaching out to Coach Van Meter was a guy that was one of his high school trainers,

19:30a high school coach of his that has, you know, developed a ton of quarterbacks had seen it.

19:35And, you know, on the phone with Coach Van Meter, Hey, what are we missing here? What's going on?

19:40And, you know, he's laughing. He's like, Listen, I trained with him, you know, on the weekends.

19:44I watch him in seven on seven. He's as talented as any kid I've ever seen in high school.

19:49I was having dinner one night with my wife and I get a phone call. I didn't know who it was,

19:53but I answered anyway. And it was Coach Eric Morris at Incarnate Word. And he said, Coach,

19:59this is Eric Morris. We're here. I got my whole staff in here and we're doing, you know, some

20:03evaluations. He said, I know you've had some good quarterbacks through your past. Tell me what you

20:09think about Cam Ward. And I said, Well, Coach, no offense. And to be quite honest, if Cam Ward was in my

20:17offense or any other spread offense, you guys wouldn't have a chance at Cam Ward. And he started laughing.

20:22The whole room started laughing. He said, That's exactly what, you know, what we were talking

20:26about in here. We, you know, we feel like we're getting a major steal. I said, Well, you are.

20:31And, you know, and I added the fact that, you know, you're also getting a kid as, I think,

20:35number one in this class. And, you know, he's very poised and a respectful young man.

20:42All Cam Ward needed was an opportunity to prove what he had as a quarterback. Coach Morris saw the raw

20:48talent, saw the same type of things that he saw with Patrick Mahomes, saw Cam Ward as an untapped

20:56resource and said, I can recreate this with this young man. And then Conant Warrior was a program

21:03that needed a spark because they played in a very tough Southland conference. You're talking about

21:07some legitimate blue bloods in that conference from, at the time, Sam Houston, McNeese, Nichols.

21:14So you have a lot of these programs that were legit blue blood FCS programs. And here's your

21:19opportunity, kid. You feel like you're a Division One player. Here's a Division One program. Yes,

21:25it's the FCS. Yes, it's kind of unheard of. No one knows where Incarnate Word is. They probably

21:29think you lied to them, talk about you go to Incarnate Word, like, stop playing with me,

21:33that type of thing. But here's a guy that shows up day one as a freshman and got busy.

21:38Blitz. Ward fires. Caught. Farrell. Touchdown.

21:45How you gon' enter the stadium, feel with your enemies screaming your name? How you gon' act when

21:48their feelings get jaded because of the accolades, leads with the fame? How you gon' hit them and pick up

21:52the pace? Don't let it slow you down. Enough for you to go and win. But don't get it twisted, don't

21:56never let nobody eat off your plate. This is the hustle for minimum wage. All of them cold summers,

22:00freezing in home wonder. If I ever make it out of them no struggles, the things that they hold from us. Look at the score,

22:05they ain't coaching those numbers, take them what they stole from us. Now they're laughing to the back,

22:09now they're calling me a crack. Turn it up, turn it up, where can we go?

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