Top Milwaukee Soccer Player Leaves Career Behind to Excel in Music
Cam Will. (Picture provided by Cam Will)
18 years of soccer.
Known by his artist name, Cam Will started playing soccer in the third grade after being invited to see his best friend KJ play. He remembers meeting the other soccer players and falling in love with the culture of soccer. After the game, Cam Will’s grandfather gave him a ball and told him it was from a professional soccer player. Although it wasn’t true, it inspired Cam Will to put his all into the game.
He then went on to play soccer at Brown Deer High School where he set multiple school records like the most career goals in a season, along with most goals scored by a freshman.
In 2018, he joined the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee soccer team during his freshman year. He played 17 out of the 19 season games before quitting the team.
Cam Will was number 19 on the UWM soccer team. (Picture provided by Cam Will)
He 100% cut off soccer to focus on music, which wasn’t an easy transition. For years, Cam Will was working to make it to the pros in soccer, so when he gave it all up, he questioned if he should go back.
Yet, he stuck with his instinct. Cam Will had his first studio session that year and dropped his EP, which got a lot of good responses. From there, it was all music.
“Sometimes you can just feel it,” he said.
Once Cam Will noticed music was like sports, he knew all he had to do was to keep practicing his craft to get where he wants to be.
Instead of waking up at 5 a.m. to practice soccer, even before practice actually began, he spent seven months only focusing on music.
According to Cam Will, he studies different artist like Jay-Z in the studio to see how they go about creating their music. He notices things such as if they record alone or with a lot people, and how they come up with their song concepts.
Cam Will is a Hip-Hop/R&B artist that is influenced by all genres of music because he was around multiple cultures growing up. He’s from Milwaukee’s north side and played soccer on the south side.
One of his earliest memories of music is from attending church.
Cam Will has a six-month goal to reach six-figure streams with his music and to grow his Instagram to 10,000 followers.
It’s been two and half years of focusing on music, but he’s never forgot about soccer. Cam Will said soccer isn’t accessible to everyone – cost being one of the reasons.
“I’m not just an artist,” he said. “I have plans on making soccer what it can be in America.”
Cam Will mixed his two loves into one to create NOV Classic: a street soccer tournament.
The tournament was held on September 26, 2021 at Burnham Park located in Milwaukee. Along with being sponsors through their nonprofit JLH Fund, Milwaukee Bucks player Jrue Holiday and former professional soccer player Lauren Holiday made an appearance at the event.
NOV Classic featured local players, some of whom were Cam Will’s very first teammates.
“For me to see that people were really playing and wanting to win was crazy,” he said.
Cam Will in his element. (Picture provided by Cam Will)
Cam Will is expecting to drop new music once certain samples clear. Now that he’s working with bigger name producers, he said that this is all a part of the process. He has no specific release date for music, but just expect for him to start dropping consistently.
Follow Cam Will’s journey by clicking here.