For many athletes, playing on a varsity team can provide a player with a new outlet, a caring support system and, above all, a second family.
But when wide receiver Cam Countryman steps onto the football field every weekend, his real family and his athletic backbone come together as one, regardless of the distance between the two spheres during the week.
For Countryman, a second-year wide out from Santa Clarita, Calif., football has always been a family affair.
Even now, with over 1,000 miles and a three-hour time difference separating him and his parents, family and football still go hand in hand.
“My dad comes out to every game, even on the road,” Countryman said. “My mom will come for the early games during the season, up until like game four or five, but she’s a teacher and her schedule starts to get really busy.”
This season, Countryman has hauled in nine passes, and his 109 receiving yards are good for fifth on the team. The sophomore set a career high with four catches at Harvard on Saturday, but he continues to search for his first career touchdown.
And beyond just this season, Countryman has been fortunate enough to have his parents by his side throughout his entire football career. Even before arriving at Penn, his parents and younger sister were constantly involved in his activities on the gridiron.
“We love football,” Robbie Countryman, Cam’s father, said. “When Cam was in high school, I was coaching, he was playing, my daughter was cheering and my wife was working in the concessions stand.
“We had it all covered in high school, and even now we just love supporting each other as a family.”
During Cam’s time in youth football until the age of 14, Robbie was the head coach of his son’s team. When Cam made the transition to varsity football as a sophomore in high school, Robbie was right there by his side again, this time as the team’s quarterbacks coach.
“He played quarterback in high school, a little bit of receiver, eventually some safety,” Robbie said. “But when he got to Penn, I thought to myself that I can finally be a dad and just watch him play.”
It wasn’t always the plan for Robbie and Cam’s mother, Dawna, a sixth-grade teacher, to make the trip east for every game.
In fact, the beginning of the routine was actually the result of a spur-of-the-moment decision last September. But neither son nor parents have considered changing things up since then.
“The first road game I went to was the Dartmouth game, and they showed up but they never told me they were coming,” Cam said. “And then it just became kind of a routine thing. I started playing a little more, and they didn’t want to miss anything.”
“He didn’t know we were coming,” Robbie added. “But just seeing him come out of the locker room with the team and running up and down in warmups, that’s been my favorite moment so far. That was enough for me on that day.”
Over the course of two seasons, Robbie and Dawna have had the opportunity to take in a lot of their son’s athletic career. But it hasn’t always been an easy task for either of them.
According to Cam, “It’s hard for her to take red-eyes from California to here, adjust to the time, and then go back and still be all cheery and energized for sixth-graders on Mondays.”
Even for Robbie, the journey from California to the east coast every weekend can be a difficult challenge.
“I’m a television director, and sometimes I’ll have a program that will go late at night,” Robbie said. “As a result, I have to get on a red-eye flight, watch the game on little sleep and spend the whole day tired.”
But once Cam’s parents find their seats — be it at Franklin Field or some other venue across the Eastern seaboard — expensive plane tickets, late flights and jetlag go out the window. For three hours on Saturdays, all of their attention is on their son in his element.
“Once you’re a coach, you never stop coaching, even when you’re watching your [own] kids play,” Robbie said. “I always tell him the good and the bad, and he usually responds really well to that.”
While the sophomore wide receiver has occasionally taken a back seat to seniors Conner Scott, Ryan Mitchell and even Ty Taylor, he has always had his parents’ support behind him.
Luckily, with two years of eligibility left, Cam has the opportunity to help fill the void for the Red and Blue when the trio of senior receivers graduate after this season. And as Countryman continues to grow as a player, it’s clear that his parents will be right there by his side the entire time.
“My wife and I, we really enjoy the games, the Penn families, the tailgates, all that sort of thing,” Robbie said. “It’s just something that we love to do.
“We’ve become close with a lot of the other kids and their families, we love going and more than anything, we can’t wait to spend the next two years doing this exact same thing for our son.”
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