Cam Ward has heard it all.
He didn’t throw enough. He’s “overweight.” If he were really that good, he would have shown more in high school.
Ward, a zero-star recruit, has had to live with the slights, but he didn’t have to like them. Instead, they became his fuel, releasing a seething desire to prove the world wrong.
“No one wanted him,” said Brent Mascheck, Ward’s high school coach. “It was crappy. It was s—ty, whatever word you want to use. It was. But in the long term, it helped him become the player and the man he is today. It’s a great story, one that should be told for kids who aren’t getting recruited, who are getting overlooked.”
Now, with Ward on the precipice of being the No. 1 pick in the NFL Draft, there’s no better time to tell that story.
‘Who the heck is this kid?’
The youngest of Calvin and Patrice Ward’s four children, Cam grew up in a competitive household in the football-crazed town of West Columbia, Texas, about an hour drive south of Houston. Calvin Ward was a quarterback, once leading Van Vleck (Texas) High to three consecutive district titles, and Patrice coached the girls basketball, volleyball and track teams when she taught at Columbia High.
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Loose, instinctive passer who can rip accurate strikes with natural rhythm
Cam’s first true love was basketball, but he was beckoned by the football gods; anyone who saw him recognized he’d been blessed with a golden right arm — though few people had seen it before he almost quit.
While driving back from a basketball tournament during his sophomore year, he told his parents he was done with football. He wasn’t slated to start on varsity despite playing 75 percent of the snaps during his freshman seven-on-seven season, so he decided to focus on basketball.
But Cam had played football since fourth grade, so Patrice urged her son to reconsider. She encouraged him to attend the first day of practice and then decide. And if he went back to the second practice, she said, he had to finish the season.
“I don’t want you to have any regrets,” Patrice told him.
The morning after the first practice, Cam woke up his mom and asked her to drive him to the field.
And when Cam committed to something, there were no shortcuts. Even though he wasn’t starting, he was the first player on the field Saturday mornings to work out. On Sundays, Calvin set up Cam for throwing sessions with longtime high school coach Steve Van Meter.
“He was still putting in the work,” Calvin said, “because we knew at some point, somebody was going to give him a shot to throw the football.”
It was during those throwing sessions that Van Meter changed the scope of Cam’s vision, relaying two truths: First, that Cam possessed a truly special arm — the best, Van Meter told him, that he’d ever coached. The second truth was that combo guards like Cam, who became the all-time leading scorer for Columbia’s basketball team, were a dime a dozen. His basketball dreams would soon die. His football career didn’t have to.
After that conversation, Calvin said, “It was a switch to going all in on football.”
Cam didn’t start his sophomore season, but his coaches quickly became aware of what he was capable of. Mascheck remembers Cam’s first throw in practice, a 50-yard bomb that hit his wide receiver in stride. Mascheck could only laugh.
Cam made three appearances at the end of his sophomore season, nearly leading a miraculous comeback in relief in one game before racking up four touchdowns to knock off ranked district rival Brazosport High, 50-22, in the season finale.
Cam was lined up to start as a junior, but Mascheck’s Wing-T offense (a run-heavy scheme) wasn’t exactly designed to highlight his QB’s passing prowess. It’s not that Mascheck didn’t want to unleash Cam’s full abilities, but the team rostered a strong group of running backs, and Cam couldn’t guide the passing attack by himself.
Calvin had run a similar offense in high school, so he told Cam to liken playing the Wing-T QB to being a magician. With so many misdirections, options and rollouts, Cam could get the offense to flourish if he worked to disguise his handoffs or hide the ball during play action. The creativity he embedded in his game during those years remains a staple of his skill set today.
Unfortunately for Cam, colleges weren’t taking notice of the developing nuances of his arsenal. And his stat line wasn’t getting their attention either. In his two-plus seasons as a starter, he only attempted 267 passes and totaled 2,261 yards and 17 touchdowns.
Calvin tried to get his son noticed, taking Cam to a host of recruiting camps, but that only led to more frustration. Some coaches said they liked him and would stay in touch, then never called. One coach said Cam was better than their four-star recruit, but he was afraid to pound the table for Cam in fear that taking such a big risk would affect his job security.
Mascheck and Van Meter, each with decades of coaching experience, called every coach and recruiter in their phones to try to get Cam a bite. One school told Mascheck, who estimated Cam weighed 240 pounds at the time, they didn’t like the QB’s body type, to which Mascheck retorted wouldn’t be an issue as soon as Cam started the college’s conditioning and nutrition programs. A big-time program’s head coach even told Mascheck that Cam threw the 15-yard out and dig better than any recruit he’d seen that year, but it was too late to back out of his pursuit of a more highly ranked QB.
“I was just scratching my head going, ‘What more do you want to see?’” Mascheck recalled. “It was the most frustrating thing in my whole life.”
Cam finally caught a break at the FCS program Incarnate Word during a recruiting camp in San Antonio, about three hours west of his hometown. UIW head coach Eric Morris, who had previously coached Baker Mayfield and Patrick Mahomes at Texas Tech, was immediately struck by Cam’s throwing session.
“Who the heck is this kid, and why do we not know who he is?” Morris recalled thinking.
Morris kept him late for a private workout, asking him to make some more difficult throws. Afterward, UIW coaches told Cam they loved him, would watch more of his tape, then launch the recruitment process.
“I think (Morris) prayed every night,” Mascheck said, “that no one (from a bigger school) was going to wake up and go, ‘What the hell are we thinking? Let’s take this kid.’”
Morris believed he had uncovered a rock-solid kid with good grades from a strong family. He attended Cam’s basketball games and saw Cam’s alpha personality shine on and off the court. And when he visited the Ward home on a Wednesday night for a pasta dinner, he saw the fun side of Ward and began to understand where he got his work ethic and discipline from as he watched Patrice get on Cam for incorrectly setting the table.
Morris fell in love with the family’s accountability and structure. He wanted Cam at Incarnate Word and made him an offer.
It would be Cam’s only scholarship offer.
“He honestly didn’t care if it was FCS, Division II, Division III,” Calvin said. “He just wanted to go somewhere to show he can throw the football.”
‘Holy smokes, did you just see that?’
Cam Ward got his foot in the door, but he hadn’t broken through just yet.
Quarterback Jon Copeland, who had shattered Incarnate Word’s passing records in each of his first two seasons, was returning for his junior season in 2020. It should have been safe to pen in Copeland as the starter.
But before Cam left for school, he told Calvin he was going to win the job. And when Cam got to campus, he took it a step further.
He walked into Morris’ office and said, “‘Coach, I’m going to be the starting quarterback here this year.’ And then he just walked out of my office,” Morris remembered. “That was (it).”
Incarnate Word’s 2020 season was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic, so the team was restricted to four practices per week. However, in November, Arkansas State contacted Incarnate Word about scheduling a game. The programs signed the contract, and UIW had three weeks to prepare. Morris told Copeland and Cam they’d compete for the job, with the final scrimmage serving as the final test.
“Cam’s face lit up like something I’d never seen,” Morris said. “That scrimmage was something special. It’s the first time our team and our staff saw what the world has seen over the past couple of years, just a fierce competitor coming out.
“His arm talent is off the charts. He was making throws his second or third week there that most FBS quarterbacks can’t make. I remember him ripping some throws during practice, some seam balls, and all the coaches looking at each other like, ‘Holy smokes, did you just see that?’ The team started gravitating toward him. You could see him win this team over, not just overnight but throughout the process of that whole fall when we were practicing.”
Unfortunately, Incarnate Word suffered a COVID outbreak the week of the game. The team never got on the plane, but it did find a new starting quarterback for its abbreviated schedule in the spring of 2021.
Cam threw for more yards and touchdowns in a six-game spring season than he had in his final two years in high school combined. He won the Jerry Rice Award as the best freshman in FCS.
After the spring season, Morris connected Cam with QB coach Darrell Colbert, who was also working with Colorado quarterback Shedeur Sanders. While setting up Cam with a standard throwing session, Colbert compiled a list of mechanics he wanted the QB to work on in their next session. But after Colbert studied Cam’s film, he quickly scrapped that plan.
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Not the athlete his father was but has touch and confidence of an NFL starter
“I was just like, ‘Oh shoot, we’re not going to change anything,’” Colbert said. “This was the stuff he was doing in those sessions with the different arm angles, off-platform throws, making certain throws off balance. That’s what makes him, him. So I thought, ‘Man, we’re not changing any of this stuff. We’re just going to find ways to perfect it.’”
Cam’s arm talent and creativity certainly appear to be special, but his processing speed will be more paramount to success in the NFL. He put that on display in college, too. In a fall 2021 playoff game against Stephen F. Austin, Cam led UIW to a fourth-and-2 at the SFA 7-yard line with 42 seconds to play, trailing 28-21.
Morris called a speed motion route to the team’s best receiver, but the coach realized as the play was unfolding that the defense had switched into a trap Cover 2 — the perfect coverage to stop UIW’s play. But Cam, too, had identified the coverage and ripped a perfect back-shoulder touchdown pass before leading UIW to a win in overtime.
“Not many people in this world can make this throw with the condensed space, and it won us the game,” said Morris. “I told everybody on the headset, ‘Holy s—, that was an NFL throw if I’ve ever seen one.’ He saw that so fast, processed the information.”
Cam initially intended to stay at Incarnate Word for four years, but the plan changed when Morris left after the 2021 season to become Washington State’s offensive coordinator. Cam entered the transfer portal, likely to follow Morris but also to assess his options.
This wasn’t like last time. He’d made a name for himself and had about 15 big-time programs chasing after him, including a very aggressive pitch from Ole Miss head coach Lane Kiffin. The Wards said they were treated “like royalty” on their visit to Oxford.
Even though Washington State couldn’t compete with Ole Miss’ NIL package, the Cougars had loyalty on their side. Just as Cam remembered every coach who snubbed him with recruiting excuses a couple of years earlier, he also felt a debt of gratitude to Morris for believing in him.
Cam packed for the Pacific Northwest and told his parents it was time to treat football like a job. He wasn’t just going to practice. He told them he was going to work. He started by going to the facility for seven or eight hours per day, then 10 hours, then 12. Wazzou coaches would half-jokingly tell Calvin and Patrice, “This kid needs to go home.”
Hunkered down in an unfamiliar location 2,000 miles from home, Cam grew obsessed with his process. He again quickly gained his teammates’ trust through his work ethic, and he was dedicated enough in the classroom to graduate in 3.5 years.
Cam led Washington State to a 7-6 record in 2022, and it lost close games to Oregon and Utah and hung tight with USC and Washington.
“If we didn’t have Cam Ward that year, we might have won two or three games total,” Morris said. “We were in all these games because (he) was so damn good.”
Morris left Wazzu after one season to take his first FBS head coaching job, at North Texas. But he couldn’t even tell his family he had accepted the job without the conversation turning toward their favorite quarterback.
Cam had gone to his house every week, playing basketball or games in the basement with Morris’ kids. That’s why the announcement, as excited as Morris was, stung the family.
“All my family could say was, ‘What about Cam?’” Morris said.
Cam had delivered two huge seasons at Wazzou, completing 65.5 percent of his passes for 6,968 yards, 48 touchdowns and 16 interceptions, and rushing for 13 touchdowns. He had one more decision to make after the 2023 season — transfer to use his last year of eligibility or declare for the 2024 draft.
‘I still have something to prove’
A zero-star recruit no more, the college football world had one final chance to get it right with Cam.
Or so it thought.
Cam took it personally when he was so widely ignored or disregarded during his high school recruitment, to the point where it unfurled an obsession to force schools to believe in him.
But now that they did, would it make sense to let them off the hook?
Well, that’s just not how Cam Ward is wired.
“When he was leaving Washington State,” Mascheck said, “my phone was blowing up with people who wanted him to come (to their school). But (I’d tell them), ‘I’m probably going to tell you no, because remember when you came to West Columbia and told him no? He kept receipts.’”
A handful of coaches changed course after snubbing Cam a few years earlier, including the one who called him “overweight.” Miami offensive coordinator Shannon Dawson tapped into that fire when he flew to Pullman, Wash., for a five-hour meeting with Cam.
The quarterback believed he should have been a top-10 pick in the 2024 draft, which included six QBs taken in the first dozen selections, but Cam got feedback that he’d more than likely be a mid-rounder. Dawson made a simple pitch. The Hurricanes were talented enough to showcase Cam’s ability in a different scheme. He could lead them to double-digit wins and solidify himself as a top pick in 2025.
“I said, ‘Let’s prove to these guys you’re the first pick overall,’” Dawson said. “It doesn’t take much when you challenge him.”
Sanders and Colbert also pushed Cam to stay in school. Sanders just loved competing with Cam; they were always on FaceTime together, comparing performances. If both threw an interception that week, they’d argue over whose was worse. With another year in school, they could now compete to see who’d be the higher draft pick.
Still, Cam was tantalized by the NFL dream. He declared for the draft on Jan. 1, 2024, loaded up his truck and drove to Jacksonville, Fla., to begin training for the NFL Scouting Combine. His parents flew out two weeks later, intending to help Cam sign with an agent and seal his status as a draft prospect.
But as the family was leaving a nail salon, Cam received a call from Miami executive director Dennis Smith, who wanted to make one last pitch. Cam wrestled with his options as they drove back to his apartment before delivering the news to his parents.
“I still have something to prove,” he told them.
Dawson, Smith and Miami coach Mario Cristobal were huddled together in an office waiting for Cam’s call, hoping they landed their top quarterback recruit. When that call came, the trio erupted in cheers. Cam packed his apartment into his truck and his parents’ rental car, and they drove to Miami the next morning.
Before Cam settled in on campus, he had some requests for Dawson. He first asked for names and photos of everyone associated with the football team — trainers, nutritionists, cafeteria workers, secretaries, janitors, anyone who’d be in the building. Sure enough, during Cam’s first days at the facility, people were calling Dawson in disbelief that Cam already knew their names.
The QB also wanted his locker in a location with the most foot traffic so he could get to know his teammates faster. It was all part of his process of getting the team to rally around him.
“This is more than just playing quarterback,” Dawson said. “This is the face of the program. You’re the guy we’re bringing in to change stuff.
“He’s got the best personality in the world. He understands interpersonal relationships and how all that stuff matters in the grand scope of things. He also understands that quarterback is a very dependent position, so he needs the guys around him to do their job.”
Suffice it to say, Miami was a successful venture. Cam completed 67.2 percent of his passes for 4,313 yards, a nation-best 39 touchdowns and seven interceptions. He also rushed for four touchdowns and caught one before finishing fourth in the Heisman voting.
Two of the highlights from that 2024 season those closest to Cam remember best: First, the resilience he showed in overcoming a 35-10 deficit — and his own third-quarter pick-six — to beat California, 39-38.
The other was when he found some revenge against an opposing coach who had spurned him in high school.
“When they played (this coach who snubbed him), let’s just say it was dealt with,” said Mascheck, who didn’t want to reveal the opponent. “Let’s leave it like that. I texted Cam, ‘You remember what the other coach said about you?’ (Cam) said, ‘Don’t worry, I’ve been thinking about that for a long time.’”
Dawson added, “He’s trying to prove the world wrong every time he takes the field.”
Mission accomplished. Cam has established himself as the draft class’s premier quarterback. The added experience of a final college season helped, but Cam and his circle believed it was more about the bigger spotlight than anything.
Cam has been ready for the NFL. The world just finally woke up and realized it.
“He brought The U back to relevance,” Colbert said. “I really think that’s the only difference.”
Now, he is on the verge of being the No. 1 pick.
All those reasons teams turned away? Cam embraced them, made them his own, into the tools that pushed him to train harder or study longer.
To get right here.
“Nobody’s given him anything,” Patrice said. “When you work for everything you have, and you haven’t been given anything, it just means so much more.”
No excuses.
(Top photo: Carmen Mandato / Getty Images)
