Michigan State's Cam Caffey (photo courtesy of Sam Janicki; SJanickiPhoto.com)Maddie Coon: Hey Cam! So nice to sit down and talk with you! I see you have Beat the Streets coming up, that's super exciting. How did this come about?
Cameron Caffey: Yeah, so it was actually maybe three weeks ago, maybe a month ago, I'm up at the Boudro camp and I had actually just kinda done a stint of, you know I'm in Iowa doing a camp and then I come back and I do a camp over in Holland or West Ottawa, I believe, and then I immediately turned and burned from there to do the Boudro camp up in the Upper Peninsula, in addition to doing a practice in Lowell in between there. And I'm up there and I'm at the Boudro camp and I just get a message on Instagram and this guy's just like “Hey, like your wrestling… Do you want to wrestle Nate Jackson?†and I was like “Of course!†Why wouldn't I want to wrestle Nate Jackson? I was really looking forward to getting a chance to wrestle him a couple months ago at the World Team Trials and I just, I didn't make it to him so, I was like “yeah, I mean, I would love to get that chance to wrestle him. I've got nothing to lose, obviously. And I like wrestling, so yeah.â€
Maddie Coon: So what does it mean to you to work with an organization like Beat the Streets?
Cameron Caffey: Yeah, so I've known about Beat the Streets for a while. Obviously in the wrestling community, they put on a lot of really big, kinda marquee matchups and I remember back when I was in youth wrestling, Alli Ragan was like “Oh, look up Beat the Streets, it's really cool!†because I think she might have been on some card back then and she's like “Yeah you should look it up.†So you know, it's been on my radar for awhile. What I'll go ahead and admit: I don't usually tune in, but I do pay attention to the matches afterward and I look at the results. It just looks like a great event, you know, especially the way they usually have it with the benefit, like I think they have it outside or something like that when they usually do it. And so just getting a chance to kinda collab with them and be a part of this is just really cool. Definitely, an opportunity that I didn't necessarily think would come to me, especially not like this.
Maddie Coon: And I feel like it's pretty notable to say that Jordan Burroughs is the lead clinician so that's gotta be pretty cool.
Cameron Caffey: Yeah, that's really cool! And even like getting to be part of an event with Jordan Burroughs. I kinda got to talk to him for the first time a couple months ago at Big 10s and he's just a great guy. So getting to be around people like Jordan Burroughs, Lee Kemp, and Nate Jackson, that's why I know I must be doing something right.
Maddie Coon: Oh definitely! So how are you preparing for this match? Are you going at it as more of a fun thing to do? Are you taking it pretty seriously?
Cameron Caffey: Well, obviously I want to win. You know I always want to win, I don't go anywhere with a plan to lose, but it is kinda summer and I'm going to my sixth year of college wrestling… It's funny because I want to say I'm an older guy but I'm way younger than Nate Jackson (both laugh). But I feel old and I just came off of the season - I guess at this point not even just came off-season, that was a couple months ago. But I'm still training hard, obviously, You know, it's funny 'cause it's only a six, seven-minute match, but I'm doing all this training for it. But yeah, I've started training hard and I mean I get to go home next week and see my family but I'll even have one of my teammates, Luke Daly, down there with me and he'll be, he'll be kinda helping me train and get ready for the match. And then I turn and burn and come right back up here and I'm training again. So yeah I'm definitely training pretty hard, especially for summer wrestling.
Maddie Coon: Sounds like it! Do you have anything else coming up this summer?
Cameron Caffey: A couple more camps. So when I'm home, I'm actually gonna be doing a camp down in Carbondale and I think they'll kinda raise money for the Carbondale Wrestling Club so… looking forward to doing that because I was in that camp when I was a kid. So it'll be nice to go there and kinda be the person who's helping kids learn stuff and helping kids get better over the summer. Who knows, there might be another little Cam Caffey there. Actually, my little brother's going to be there so… (both laugh) But I'm going to be doing that. I'm also going to be doing a camp over at Mattawa, I wanna say sometime in August, sometime in the middle of August. Even besides those, I'm just kinda free to go anywhere and do whatever camps that people ask me to do. I do them on short notice, I'm not really doing anything else at this point, I'm really just training, so I do whatever comes my way. And then kinda weekly I'll go over to Lowell and help kinda do one-on-one sessions over there. So, yeah, a lot going on wrestling-wise.
Maddie Coon: Yeah, no breaks!
Cameron Caffey: No breaks!
Maddie Coon: So you mentioned how it feels like you're just coming off of the season. Are you getting ready for next season? Mentally, physically? What's coming up for you next year?
Cameron Caffey: Yeah, so I guess I haven't really made an official announcement yet but I'm still in talks with Roger about next season and about doing that. Like I was just saying, I'm old and run down. This will be my sixth year here with the Spartans. I'll be the oldest guy here. So, you know, just trying to make sure that I go about it the right way. Like what do we need to change to make sure that we don't fizzle out by Big 10s and NCAAs? What do we need to change? What needs to be done differently? Maybe we're going too hard, maybe we're not going hard enough. Those are the things that we've kinda got to figure out now because I don't really have much time left. So I definitely, I like to be relaxed but I can definitely feel that pressure of ‘this is the last dance,' you know?
Maddie Coon: Yeah, for sure! So, is there anything else you'd like to plug? Any camps you want people to sign up for? Anything like that?
Cameron Caffey: Man, well if anybody I guess close in Michigan or maybe even close in Ohio, if anybody wants to do one-on-one sessions or maybe not one-on-one sessions, but maybe more like clinics, I'm open to doing that. I should have new merch coming out soon. I haven't posted anything about it yet because I'm still kinda getting that straightened out especially considering I still have some of the shirts from last year in the smaller sizes. But I'm definitely, I'm getting ready to come out with more merch so there might be an Instagram post about that soon. So yeah, follow me on Instagram @CamOnTheLam
Maddie Coon: Awesome! Thank you so much! We're looking forward to the new merch and I'm looking forward to this match with Nate Jackson. Thank you for sitting down and talking with me and good luck!
Cameron Caffey: Thanks for having me.
Maddie Coon: Of course. Go Green!
Cameron Caffey: Go White!
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