Advertisement

Vikings safety Cam Bynum reps his roots with football camp in the Philippines

Dane Mizutani, Pioneer Press
·5 min read

The plan was to meet up at LAX before boarding a plane that would take them halfway around the world.

Vikings safety Cam Bynum was flying in from Minnesota. His mother Jennifer was driving from about an hour away in Corona, Calif. His wife Lalaine was already out in the Philippines.

Then there was his trainer Anthony Brown, who arrived at the airport first and had no idea what he was getting himself into. Until he bumped into Bynum.

“He’s like, ‘My mom and them are checking the boxes on the other side,’ ” Brown said. “I go around to the other side and I can’t believe it. I’m talking about we’ve got boxes on top of boxes on top of boxes. I’m like, ‘Are we moving a house?’ ”

Nope. Just putting on a football camp in the Philippines.

A proud Filipino through his mother’s heritage, Bynum grew up in Southern California surrounded by Filipino culture with the vision of reconnecting with his roots. He visited for the first time last summer, supporting relief efforts and the victims of Typhoon Megi.

He also found himself connecting with people over a shared love of football.

“I was like, ‘Why not do a football camp out there where I bring some of my family and friends who know the sport pretty well?'” said Bynum, who will start for the Vikings this season alongside veteran Harrison Smith. “Our goal is to expand football on that side of the world.”

He started the conversation last winter by proudly draping the Filipino flag over his shoulders after making an interception that helped the Vikings seal a win over the New York Jets.

“Representation,” Bynum said after that game. “Just being able to put my flag on the map and hopefully get some more eyes to see what we’re doing in the Philippines.”

He continued the conversation this summer by hosting a football camp in the Philippines. There were a lot of moving parts throughout the planning process.

Hence the scene at LAX and the preponderance of boxes.

Luckily for Bynum, he was traveling with about a dozen people in total, meaning each person could check some extra baggage to the final destination.

“His mom had it all worked out like, ‘You’re going to take this. You’re going to take this. You’re going to take this,’ ” said Brown, who has been training Bynum since he was in high school. “She’s distributing the boxes and the suitcases, so we can get everything to the Philippines.”

Meanwhile, across the Pacific Ocean, the group Red Zone Szn, which runs a flag football league in the Philippines, was helping Bynum get everything organized. Members scouted out the host site — Rizal Memorial Stadium — to make sure there was enough room to actually run the football camp. They also carved out space for things like registration tables and water stations.

“All the little small things that people don’t always think about,” Bynum said. “They really came through because we couldn’t be there to do that stuff.”

The football camp spanned a couple of days — June 24 and June 25 — with Bynum also deciding to put on a coaching clinic in the lead-up to the event. Most of the instruction at the coaching clinic came from Brown, fitting since he provided those same tools to Bynum during his growth as a player.

“We ran through all the drills and really taught it in detail,” said Bynum, who credited the Vikings for providing him with a ton of supplies. “We wanted to pass the knowledge on to them so they could pass it on to other people when we’re gone.”

The scene at Rizal Memorial Stadium was something out of a movie. The massive field came equipped with a cityscape backdrop that made every moment feel big. Just like Bynum envisioned it.

The football camp was broken up into two parts. There was a full day of teaching with fundamentals taking the forefront, then a full day of competition with a flag football tournament serving as the highlight.

“The vibe was different than a lot of football camps,” Brown said. “It wasn’t a vibe like, ‘I’m out here doing it for the cameras.’ It was a vibe like, ‘We’re really going to make this stuff stick out here in the Philippines.’ This was our first shot at it, and we wanted to nail it.”

They did. They say a picture is worth a thousand words and the snapshot moments from the football camp speak volumes in showing the viability of the sport in the Philippines. There’s clearly fervor for it.

That’s why Bynum plans to go back as many times as he possibly can. He named it “Camp Beezy Volume 1” for a reason.

“We didn’t want to call it an annual camp,” Bynum said. “That means we only do it once a year.”

Multiple times a year?

“Oh yeah, baby,” Brown said. “This is a lifestyle now.”

Whether it’s helping with more relief efforts on different islands, or continuing to grow the game of football, Bynum wants to help as many people as possible. He learned that lesson from Filipino boxing legend Manny Pacquiao, who he had the privilege of meeting this summer.

“He gave a lot of his money back to his country,” Bynum said. “That’s exactly how I want to do things. I don’t want to do things for myself. Just being able to make memories and help people and change lives, that’s way more meaningful than a few extra dollars in my pocket.”

That means whenever the Vikings are done this season — Bynum hopes that won’t be until after Super Bowl LVIII in Las Vegas — he will go back to the Philippines and continue his work.

“I’ve realized over the years that I can’t be playing this game for myself,” he said. “My mentality is the more I play well and the more I ball on the field, the more I can help people back home.”

Related Articles