If nothing else, he was ours

For those of you who don’t really know me, I’m Jay Boyd. I’m 22 and a recent graduate of Appalachian State University. For every second of those 22 years I’ve lived less than 30 minutes from the Queen City (speaking permanent residence).

The same could be said for the two folks responsible for those 22 years, and while we’re at it, same goes for their folks. So, we know Charlotte.

Charlotte may not have been where we laid our heads, but when a major city is that close and has been that close for that long, it’s home.

With all that out the way: I didn’t write this to beat on my chest and try to out-Charlotte anyone. I wrote this to make space for a conversation I personally haven’t seen anyone have.

Cam is gone and he was ours. Since 2011, he put his body on the line for our favorite football team. And that means something.

Every Sunday in the Fall, he was running and gunning and taking hits that honestly he didn’t have to (or need to).

Those things made fans of the Panthers feel, something we had lacked for a while leading to his arrival.

Now I’m no Panthers historian, but my mind is still good and I remember the ridiculous

amount of quarterbacks we had to “cheer,” for between Delhomie and Cam.

There was Jimmy, David, Matt and even that time we had to pull ole Vinny off the couch.

And all of those times were BRUTAL.

But in 2011, when a man with a brand new Heisman trophy and National Championship trophy (the one that looked like something) came to town, that all seemed like the end.

(And lord I hope we’re not headed back to those day cause man seeing that number 1 jersey dart across that field and almost throw his back out trying to rifle a pass almost made me forget about how bad those times were.)

The highs were HIGH HIGH, 2015 obviously, but man there are moments that stick out. Like that game in Nashville, where Cam was working them boys left and right until they pouted. That was beautiful.

Oh, and that Dallas game. The way Cam was moving our team down the field and how the entire world was forced to sit back and appreciate us, even if just for a night, was magical.

That’s what I’ll remember most of Cam’s time here, the way he made us feel. Whether that came on a Sunday after 1 p.m. or the week of Thanksgiving when he was feeding our community, Cam made us feel like he was ours. Like he was one of us.

I’ll always say nothing, not a single thing Cam can do will make me forget the way he made his annual wave at Fan Fest feel like a fourth quarter comeback. I don’t mean a wave like lift your hand wave, I mean a lift your arms in unity wave. Cam would get the fans involved in it every year at Fan Fest and the looks across the crowd, from seven to seventy, were universal.

People loved that man, and though they may not have always like his clothes, or his hair, shoot, they may have even disliked the way he played the game, he ALWAYS made us feel like we had one.

One as in a guy that was ours. Since he was ours fresh out of college, he didn’t seem borrowed. He grew up a LOT here.

Losing that man sucks, especially for a guy like me that while still in my early twenties has lost my two favorite quarterbacks ever. The other guy isn’t playing right now because he asked America to stand for what she promised on paper.

I hate that for both of my guys, but it only further proves that black quarterbacks never get quite the leash of their white counterparts.

Like I said in the beginning, I’m only 22, so I don’t remember any Hornets teams that actually had a chance for a significant playoff push.

Cam was our only hope in my short lifetime (No I don’t remember ’03, I was 5). As a Panther he put together the only meaningful playoff teams I’ve witnessed here in Charlotte. For that alone, he’ll always mean something to us.

He had his bumps here, no doubt about that, but he grew from them.

Cam will leave us for “business,” reasons, and that sucks, but I’ll always cheer on the man that made us feel like we were on a first-name basis.