Cameron Lynch: From the Gridiron to the Broadcast Studio
“Hey, Miki!” shouts a passionate voice from the hallway. All 23 adolescent heads in the room promptly turn to face the door. Wearing a bright orange, argyle-style button-up tee, accompanied by gray jeans and a black and gold pair of tumbled leather Air Jordan 1s, enters Cameron Lynch. Behind him, his entourage-like media team, consisting of Akeem Gonzales, Meg Wiggins, and a plethora of cameras and microphones, follows. “What’s up y’all?” he calls out, introducing himself.
After a brief greeting with Professor Miki Turner, Lynch sits himself in the center of the room at the main desk. Before students are able to ask questions to the NFL pro, he further displays his irrepressible persona. He pulls his black iPhone out from his right pocket, scrolls and taps for a few seconds, and pans the phone camera out in front of him. “We’re on Instagram live y’all! Everybody turn up!” he enthusiastically says. Every student, myself included, puts their hands up and shouts out a cheer.
At this time of year, most NFL players are locked in for training camp, focused on the upcoming season. Yet for Lynch, who is currently a free agent, he finds himself in a classroom at USC Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism, rather than a practice field. And in no way is he in the wrong place. “I was excited to come here. Professor Miki brings me in, and I enjoy being here,” he says. “I actually wanna go to school here, grad school, so I’m gonna go to admissions after this and see what’s up.”
The Syracuse graduate sees Annenberg as a bridge to a career in broadcasting, something that, like football, ranks high on his list of passions. Unlike other athletes-turned-broadcasters, Lynch doesn’t view the industry as a way to keep the bills coming once his playing days are over. His mindset is different — he’s been pursuing this goal for years now. “Some guys are like, ‘oh, I need them dollars,’” says the aspiring journalist, who also has an obsession for anime. “Me? No, I’m here to get my reps in. To sharpen my skill set. I dressed up in a button-up though, right? I didn’t come here in a t-shirt just playing around. So by the time I get there, I’ll have had these reps already.”
And these “reps” don’t just include enlightening a group of high school students over the summer. Cam flaunts a far more established resume. From Cam’s Cam, his own sports show in college, to calling the 2019 Super Bowl, Lynch could take one step into a newsroom and be as comfortable as can be. But of course, he’ll take all the instruction he can get before he does so — especially when it’s from one of the most prestigious universities in the country.
Along with building his education, Lynch has taken the time given to him through free agency to build his own brand. In doing so, he’s crossed paths with Meg and Akeem, who now too join us in the classroom. While Lynch is the unofficial leader of the pack, the three have formed a dynamic creative trio, devising content for Cam’s social media platforms.
“I met him at the Super Bowl, while I was interning with the NFL,” says Meg of her first interaction with Lynch. “I instantly saw how engaged he was, and how much he loved what he was doing. And that was someone that I wanted to be around.”
Akeem was introduced to Cam in a less sudden, more indirect way. “I work in media, and I film interviews,” says Akeem who, similar to Cam, was a college football player himself, playing defensive tackle for Oregon State. “Usually I don’t pay attention to what they’re saying in the interview. I was editing an interview of Cam’s, going back and forth, and I thought, ‘dang, this guy is really about that life.’ He had that energy.”
Cam has used this energy in all walks of his life — from his NFL career, to his dream of journalism, to telling his story at Annenberg. As he said himself, in a burst of song, “My energy is always on ten. Boom, boom boom boom, boom.” It doesn’t seem unlikely that we’ll see this energy on sports networks for years to come.
