“Work out, stay in the playbook and throw the f— out of the ball.”
That’s what Cam Ward said when asked about his summer plans at the end of Titans minicamp in June. The blunt statement was a verbal representation of how the No. 1 overall pick carries himself.
In an era when athletes spend more and more time on their brands, Tennessee’s hopeful franchise quarterback embodies simplicity. He doesn’t draw any more attention to himself than is necessary.
Ward just wants to play football, literally.
“Phone on DND. Wake up. Watch film,” Ward said last week when asked how he manages to carry the weight of expectations. “I talk to five people a day besides my teammates. Talk to my parents and my dog. That’s really it. I just be chilling. Go home and I don’t really do too much. Eat and then go to sleep.”
With training camp just underway, the Titans have already come to admire Ward’s approach. It’s the same one that’s been integral to his improbable rise from zero-star recruit — with stops at Incarnate Word and Washington State before starring at Miami last season — to becoming the No. 1 pick in the NFL Draft. It’s an approach molded, in many ways, by his family.
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Cameron Ward has attacked his first NFL training camp with the same intensity that fueled his rise from zero-star recruit to the top of the draft. (Photo by Johnnie Izquierdo/Getty Images)
Ward learned the importance of routine from his father, Calvin, and that only his work would bring him peace.
When you play well, they’re going to talk about you.
When you play badly, they’re going to talk about you.
That’s what Calvin stressed when Cameron started his college career at Incarnate Word, the only school to offer him a scholarship coming out of high school.
“‘You got the offer you wanted. You got an opportunity to go prove yourself, so you got to block everything out,’” Calvin told me of his message to his son as he started college. “‘It’s about you, football and your education now. That’s all it’s about.'”
That approach paid dividends for Ward, whose upbringing offers further context.
He saw his grandparents twice per week while growing up in little West Columbia, Texas. His paternal grandfather dropped out of school in eighth grade to help care for his 13 brothers and sisters when their father passed away, taking a job as a construction worker. He rose to become the vice president of the small company.
On draft night, Ward wore the 25-year-old Rolex that had belonged to his late grandfather, who had worn it no more than three times in his life.
“My dad was a quiet man … pretty much leading by example,” Calvin said. “Simple man. Family man. Church deacon. Never took a vacation.”
In April, Ward attended the draft at Lambeau Field with his parents, Patrice and Calvin Ward. (Photo by Michael Reaves/Getty Images)
For the past 35 years, Calvin has worked at a nuclear plant. He drives an hour from the family’s home in West Columbia to begin his 10-hour shift at 7 a.m. When Cameron was young and Calvin got home, they would promptly go to the backyard to do throwing drills with a passing net — the reps he didn’t get in Columbia High School’s Wing-T offense.
“It got to the point in high school where when I got home, I say, ‘Let’s go get it’ and he’s already done it,” Calvin recalled.
But Calvin knew his son’s mentality was truly different at the start of his college career.
Ward’s first college game was on the road at McNeese State. His parents stayed in the same hotel as the team. When Cameron visited them before curfew the night before the game, he brought his play sheet — color-coded, with more than a couple of hundred plays — to go over the calls.
“It was like ‘OK Dad, this is what we coming out with,’” Calvin recalled him saying. “Or, ‘Hey, in this situation, this is what we’re going to do.’ And I ask him questions.
“I’m sitting there looking during that first game and I’m like, ‘Based on what he said, this is going to happen,'” Calvin added. “And it happened.”
In 2024, Ward won the Davey O’Brien Award as the nation’s best quarterback and finished fourth in Heisman Trophy voting. (Photo by Dustin Markland/Getty Images)
UIW is where Cameron learned to obsess over film. He watched so much there that coaches would have to tell him to go back to his dorm.
That approach has traveled with him to the NFL. Ward gets to the Titans’ facility around 5 a.m., earlier than some of the coaches. It’s a habit that began in the offseason program, when he’d do film study early with some of the rookie pass-catchers.
Coach Brian Callahan has already talked to Ward about pacing himself.
“Everybody always starts out of the gate pretty hot,” Callahan said in June. “But you start to get into the actual routine, and you understand how long of a season it is and the marathon that it is for young players from the time they finish their college season to the time they finish NFL season. I’ve made that point [to him]. I’m not telling him what to do. I’m just making the point that there’s a lot ahead of him that he’s not aware of yet when it comes to this, the length and the week-to-week-to-week grind that comes up for these guys. It is a marathon.”
A marathon that Cameron will attack the only way he knows how.
Last Tuesday, the Titans’ reporting date for training camp, Ward arrived at the team facility at 4:45 a.m.
“At the end of the day, Cameron wants to be successful,” Calvin said. “He doesn’t care about the glamor. He doesn’t care about the glitz. He doesn’t care about the money. He wants his team to win, and he wants to be successful. … When he hits the field, he wants to beat the brakes off. That’s just who he is.
“You’ve probably seen that there’s not enough focus on him being the first pick or whatever,” Calvin added. “He honestly does not care. That’s the honest truth. He doesn’t care.
“He just wants to work, get better, help his team improve.”
Ben Arthur is an NFL reporter for FOX Sports. He previously worked for The Tennessean/USA TODAY Network, where he was the Titans beat writer for a year and a half. He covered the Seattle Seahawks for SeattlePI.com for three seasons (2018-20) prior to moving to Tennessee. You can follow Ben on Twitter at @benyarthur.
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