Loyola gets special visit from Ravens' Cameron
Before Loyola players, coaches and staff piled onto a number of buses for the long road trip to Ithaca, N.Y., on Thursday evening, the Greyhounds got a special visit from Ravens offensive coordinator Cam Cameron.
Cameron was the guest speaker for the team’s 12 seniors, who will not be able to participate in Saturday’s commencement ceremony because they will be playing against No. 7 seed Cornell in a NCAA Tournament first-round contest.
"It was great," Loyola coach Charley Toomey said. "It was a well-done ceremony honoring our young men. I was just joking around with [WBAL Radio personality] Pete Gilbert on the radio that I might have a hard time getting our kids fired up to play after what he just did. For 35, 40 minutes, he had our team ready to play."
Toomey said Cameron urged the players to pursue their goals.
"He talked about when he had graduated from Indiana, he had graduated with a business degree, but in his heart, he knew he wanted to coach," Toomey said. "His first coaching position was for $9,000, and he made the decision to follow his heart. Now, he’s loving life every day with what he does, and that’s what he told them that they should do – following their dreams, following their hearts, and know that when you go to a school like Loyola, whatever you do, ethics will be a part of it. It was a great message for our guys. Then he challenged our guys to go up there and get a win."
The entire team was present for Cameron’s speech, which included a pep talk for Saturday’s contest.
"He told us to go up there, play defense, and get prepared," Toomey said. "He’s watched us play this year, and he knows that we’re a scrappy team. He said we need to play scrappy and we need to play solid defense – just like the Ravens."
