LSU's Cam Cameron on cancer bout: 'I was six months from death'
It turns out LSU offensive coordinator Cam Cameron’s bout with cancer was more serious than the program let on.
In a feature from The Advocate’s Ross Dellenger, Cameron detailed what it was like continuing to coach – sometimes from a hospital bed – while dealing with an “aggressive” form of prostate cancer last August. How could Cameron, who is entering his fourth season with the program, coach from a hospital bed, you ask? FaceTime, of course.
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Joe Bourg, a student assistant, would dial Cameron, who was recovering from surgery in a Baltimore hospital, via FaceTime and the coach would observe those preseason practices on his iPad.
He did more than just watch, too. He coached.
From The Advocate:
Bourg provided Cameron with a way to watch his offense practice while he recovered from prostate cancer surgery in a Baltimore hospital and then at home in Baton Rouge. For at least a week, Bourg toted an iPad around LSU’s camp practices, a live feed of Cameron plastered on its face.
“We went around to be with the quarterbacks and got behind drills,” Bourg said. “He’d say, ‘OK, we’re going here.’ That’s where I went.”
“It was crazy,” receiver Malachi Dupre said. “He was coaching through that. He could see each and every play.”
Said quarterback Brandon Harris: “After one practice, he made me run sprints.”
Cameron, who is now cancer free, was away from the team for all of two weeks. He had surgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore on Aug. 12 (just three weeks before LSU opened its season) and remained hospitalized for four days. All the while, he remained involved as much as he could by watching practice and participating in coaches meetings (all via FaceTime) until he returned to campus.
It took him a bit more time to get back on his feet. At first, he watched practice “while sitting on a lift positioned on a gravel road that runs beside LSU’s practice fields” and communicating via headsets. He also viewed team scrimmages while sitting in a wheelchair in the press box. Nonetheless, Cameron coached the whole season despite some initial trepidation from head coach Les Miles.
In an interview last week with The Advocate, Miles was asked if he ever told Cameron not to coach last season.
“Yeah,” he said, “but he wanted to. He says, ‘That’s what we do.’ And it is.”
Things could have been much different. Speaking at a recent coaching clinic, Cameron said he was “six months from death.”
The cancer was discovered in spring of 2015, but luckily for Cameron, it hadn’t spread to any other parts of his body. Cameron’s condition was largely kept quiet, even among the team. The coaches, quarterbacks and a few other offensive skill position players knew, but other than that, the rest of the team was not given specifics about his absence. Cameron was finally given a clean bill of health from doctors on Aug. 28, and after the news got out in the press that, he confirmed the diagnosis in a press conference alongside Miles.
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With the ordeal behind him, Cameron is making sure other coaches take their health seriously by encouraging routine physicals. He was blunt at LSU’s recent coaching clinic.
“If I missed another physical, I ain’t standing here right now.”
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Sam Cooper is a contributor for the Yahoo Sports blogs. Have a tip? Email him or follow him on Twitter!
