Cash Cameron: The True Air of Competition
July 12, 2018
Coming out of Houston’s Memorial High School as a fullback in a power-I offense (“more of a lineman than a running back”), Cash Cameron wasn’t a recruit in demand. He didn’t get deterred. He walked on at TCU and was told they didn’t even have gear for him. He earned the gear. He got through two-a-days. He made the cut.
Cash cherishes his experience at TCU, learning from Coach Gary Patterson (“a maniac, but a genius”), and learning how to be “a real running back." He's especially thankful to have trained with Don Sommer, TCU’s head strength and conditioning coach, who helped him ask the most of himself: “There were world-class athletes and coaches in that program. When you’re the least talented guy, it makes you step up.”
Sophomore year, Cash started on kickoffs as the wedge-buster: the gridiron kamikaze, the baddest man on special teams. Starting was a reward for his hard work on the scout team, and a testament to his go-for-broke competitive desire. It was also a validation that he had accomplished something permanent.
Cash made the difficult decision to step back from his athletic career junior year, in order to focus on his professional development. “I saw some of the guys I respected most on my team graduating and not having a plan,” he recalls. “There was a decent amount of injury, but I could have kept going. I had to figure out what life had in store for me, and because I stepped away, my career in finance started.”
Cash parlayed an internship with Luther King Capital Management into a private equity associate position with LKCM Headwater Investments, then took the oil and gas line head-on in Oklahoma City for a few years before returning home to Houston. He’s now Managing Partner at Cameron Capital Group LLC, and this is his D10 story.
What does The D10 do for you athletically, as a former collegiate football player?
Most of what we do in life lacks that true air of competition, and The D10 is the most fun competing that I’ve had since TCU. It works in a way that puts that fire in your belly, lets you feel that anticipation...that fire that’s hard as hell to ignite, The D10 does that.
My profession satisfied a good amount of that desire, because investment banking is very team oriented, and you're in the trenches with some big personalities. But when you're 25, and you're sitting behind a computer screen all day, you almost feel robbed of that physical outlet that's so central to who an athlete is. It’s hard to get up like that for anything else. I was no fun sitting in the stands at a football game, I can tell you that. The D10 allows that outlet, that feeling of “Let’s go and kick ass at this, the way I used to....”
That athlete is hard to wake up, but he’s in there somewhere.
In your first D10, you ranked among Houston’s top fundraisers. What was your secret?
Frankly, I was surprised it came in the way that it did.
When I came across The D10, I thought, this is new and interesting. I sent an initial email to people from high school, college, my professional life - all the different groups within my network. Even if they hadn’t heard from me in six months, it was “damn the torpedoes.”
I spent a long time thinking through the email and making very clear the WHAT and the WHY of The D10. “You are essentially backing me, and all your dollars are going to MD Anderson.” I emailed somewhere between 400 and 500 people, and ultimately 47 of the team’s donors were people who were my contacts. About a 10% hit rate.
After the initial email, I did my follow up mainly by phone. The maybes...if they feel compelled, that’s great. Some guys I could say, “Hey, I know you’re kind of a meathead like me. Check this out.”
Do you have a personal connection to the cause of pediatric cancer research?
Not on the pediatric side. My Mom fought breast cancer for seven years. Cancer's affected my family in a big way, but never a child….As a parent, a child in that kind of pain is one of the things I cannot even imagine.
Now that you’re a D10 veteran, has your approach changed for 2018?
For 2018, I’m doing more or less the same thing, but now I can say, Look, this is what I did last year. Here are my stats: now you have a baseline, let’s see if I can beat it. I’m going to focus on the 400, and make sure I hit my numbers. I just had my third kid, so I’m pretty fat right now.
Knowing what The D10 and the mission of it is, I just feel so good about it. I’ve been blown away by the money. It’s something I’m really proud of.
Now that I’m all in on Cameron Capital, I may miss out on a couple big donations I got last year from guys I was working with, but I’ll make it up in volume. I’ve found that Houston is a market where, if you ask, you’ll get something.
Cash Cameron captains Team 3 Dads + Dude in The D10 Houston, November 3, 2018. Give Cash some incentive to burn off that Dad fat here, and register to make your own impact at this link.