Cam F Awesome was born on August 6th 1988 as Lenroy Thompson. Lenroy was a quiet kid who spoke very little and was even bullied at a young age for his weight recalling that he would even make up stories on the way to the gym about being the protagonist of his own story.
“I would make up stories of kicking everyone’s ass. I had all the money, all the girls and all the cars.”
Little did a young Lenroy know that he would go on to become a multiple national champion, spar the likes of Anthony Joshua and become the protagonist of an almost unimaginable story.
The Beginning of Lenroy
Lenroy now known as Cam, didn’t enjoy boxing as a young child even saying to his dad that it was dumb and would actively mock him for enjoying the sport.
“My dad used to watch boxing a lot and I honestly thought it was stupid. It’s like, first of all, I like gloves. I don’t like mittens. So I would never wear mittens. I would always wear gloves when it was cold out because I always liked control of my fingers and the concept of putting boxing mittens on and punching each other then hugging after seems stupid to me. And that was something I would mock him for watching”
This mindset changed through fate in his childhood because after repeatedly getting teased for his weight and struggling with anxiety he turned to the sport for confidence.
“I thought if I joined the boxing gym, it would help me with a few things; one help me get laid because that’s important when you’re 16, two teach me how to defend myself and three give me confidence and allow me to lose weight.”
Early Boxing Aspirations-
At the age of 16 Cam then known as Lenroy didn’t have any aspirations of becoming a world champion or even winning fights, he just wanted to lose weight and get laid.
This original relationship with boxing grew to change within the next few years after winning fight after fight, Lenroy grew to love the sport and realised it could help change his life.
Within two years of stepping inside a boxing gym, Lenroy had amassed a record of 11-5 (all officially known recorded bouts via Boxrec) and through this record, he had been invited into the boxing national championships 2008.
He went to the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs with one thing on his mind, winning the national championship and that’s exactly what he did beating Darlington Arga by points winning his first national title.
This not only won him the honour of calling himself a national title holder and the best heavyweight in the country but it earned him a place on the Olympic trial squad.
Lenroy had it all, a chance to chase history and become an Olympic star, a potential medalist for his country. He had all the talent to do so but fate would have other ideas.
The First of Many Blockades-
Lenroy had failed to update his address to the drug testing agency causing multiple “failed” tests to go on his record.
“I was travelling about 300 days a year with boxing and I changed my address when I moved but I forgot to tell the drug testing agency. So they showed up at my old address to drug test me three times. I missed all three. So for about four and a half months, I was still out competing not knowing I was suspended for missing drug tests. Even though all the tournaments that I fought in you have to get drug tested to fight, so it wasn’t that I was hiding.
At first, I thought well, it can’t be true that people don’t get kicked off the Olympic team. I can’t possibly have done this much work and not been able to go to the Olympics. I’m sure we’ll figure it out and after we had our hearing it was official.
I was devastated. I was heartbroken. The only thing that I knew how to do was taken from me.
Then I had the embarrassment of being the guy who got kicked off the team, not for actually doing drugs or fun drugs or steroids but for actually forgetting to update my address. So it was terribly embarrassing. I felt humiliated. I let down fans family friends. Like I let myself down”
Major News Played a Role-
Lenroy was adamant he just made a mistake and cited the Lance Armstrong controversy as reasoning for why the testing agency was so harsh.
“It was because Lance Armstrong had gone on Oprah back in 2012 and it made the drug testing agency seem incompetent. So because of the backlash, they cracked down on a bunch of athletes for minor offences that didn’t really mean anything.”
Despite his frustrations with the testing and how tough the agency was with his case, Lenroy decided not to give up and had a unique way to show the world the new him.
The Birth of Cam F Awesome-
Lenroy decided to become Cam F Awesome and legally ensured he never felt the pain of Lenroy Thompson’s shortcomings again.
The reason behind the change in name went right back to his walks from school pretending he was the protagonist of life.
“I thought back to the difference between me in 2012 and 2006 One of us liked me. So I wanted to change my internal dialogue. I decided I was gonna be my best friend, my biggest fan. I was gonna be my biggest supporter. So I changed my last name to awesome as a reminder that I am awesome, my shit doesn’t stink and I’m capable of anything.”
But where did the F come from in this new personality?
“I also changed my middle name to the letter F because it was the last fuck I had to give.”
In this moment Lenroy Thompson turned from an anxious, overweight, suspended, embarrassed man, to Cam F Awesome the man who could and would do anything he put his mind to.
Through his new name and personality, Cam went on to win three more national titles and three Golden Gloves trophies creating a legacy in amateur boxing not many can match.
Despite his major success on a national level fate would prove again his downfall. Cam went to the Pan American Games and lost in international competition to break hopes of making the Olympics in 2016.
A New Career?
Throughout all of this heartbreak, Cam stayed positive and even started a new career between boxing.
“The first thing I did when I came back to the States, was I joined the National Speakers Association and learnt how to become a speaker. I bought a van and I lived in it for three years, because if I lived in a van I didn’t have to pay for hotels, flights, and rental cars, it allowed me to keep my living expenses low, build my business and learn. I made a lot of mistakes but my overhead was so low it allowed me to go all over the United States speaking.”
Although he had built this business from the ground up, the itch of boxing needed to be scratched for Cam and for his career. So Cam kept training and competing in the hopes of finally getting his shot at the Olympics but Team USA had other plans citing issues with his business.
“When you’re on Team USA, they want you to live at the Olympic training centre with their coaches and they wouldn’t allow me to leave to travel and speak. So I would have to cancel all the speaking engagements I had already booked. So I decided I wasn’t going to do that.”
Using a Unique Loophole-
Just like all the other obstacles in Cam F Awesome’s life, he found another unique way of getting around.
“My dad’s from Trinidad. So I flew into my dad’s home country I learned about his country and learned about his culture. I became a dual citizen. I fought in their Olympic Trials won by knockout and returned to the States to continue to travel around the country speaking”
The then thirty-one-year-old had fought as hard as he could to realise his dream of becoming an Olympic competitor. Qualifying for two different countries to make this dream a reality but then something unprecedented happened.
The Ending Blow-
The 2020 Olympics Tokyo was cancelled due to a worldwide pandemic, crushing the dreams of Cam F Awesome for the fourth time.
“2008 I made it to the Olympic trials I lost. 2012 I won the Olympic trials but I got suspended. 2016 I won the Olympic trials but lost in international competition. 2020 I won the Olympic trials but Trinidad didn’t send a team because of COVID”
Even after all the heartbreak that boxing gave him and how many times he got knocked down, Cam F Awesome got back up and gave it his all but boxing took it all off of Cam.
After a year and a half out of the sport, boxing came back to almost take his sight with one last KO shot.
“I Hadn’t been boxing for a year and a half but I woke up one morning, I went to write my gratitude journal and I realised I couldn’t see out of my right eye. They rushed me in for emergency surgery and turns out I had a detached retina. They said if I hit again, I might be permanently blinded in my right eye.”
Most would take this news and struggle to tell it to others but Cam wasn’t this type of person even joking with me about his sight issues saying “I’m not for quitting, but I am for seeing.”
Not Just a Boxer-
Cam had come to terms with not being able to box ever again and said he has never seen himself as a fighter and always used it to his advantage, not as his only option.
“After I retired. I nearly lost my vision and I could never box again. It didn’t bother me because I already had a very successful business to fall back on. I’m not a fighter, I don’t identify as a fighter. I’m so grateful for that because there are so many athletes who don’t have anything else other than their sport and even if you play to the other side of 40 that’s half your life. What are you doing with the rest of it?”
He always saw boxing as a way to further his other ventures even coining the term ‘Athlete privilege’.
“My goal wasn’t to be a boxer. What I wanted to do was to win enough stuff in boxing to leverage athlete privilege, athlete privilege to kind of a concept I came up with. I will tell you, I got opportunities only because I was good at a sport like the reason why you wanted to interview me is because I was good at a sport. Luckily I always knew who I was I was the shit, I just happened to box”
The Mindset Of Cam-
Cam recalled a moment when this mindset really got edged into his goals and put into reality.
“I won’t even mention his name out of respect, but there’s a fighter who fought back in the 90s he fought Mike Tyson once and I met him at a boxing event. He saw me, oh man Cam and hugged me. Then 30 seconds later he turns around, and he sees me again. He’s like, Oh man cam and he does the same thing over and over again. He has such short-term memory that his wife just walks over, takes him and walks him away. I saw that I was like oh, that’s not what I want.”
He was also very wary of the darkness the sport could bring and how it’s a lonely sport.
“No one actually cares about the boxer. If I was gonna make money in boxing, I would much rather I would set up the ring for people to fight in before I actually got in the ring to fight. The boxer, he’s the last one to get paid and the first one who would die”
Cam never looks back on his career with any regret and has used his ‘Athletic privilege’ to create a motivational speaking business, where he still travels across the USA giving talks and speeches.
Cam F Awesomes One Piece of Advice-
I believe this one quote and a piece of advice encapsulates Cam F Awesome’s mindset and personality to a tea.
“People only get about 60% of what they expect in life. So let’s say your goal is to make 100,000 pounds a year. You’re probably gonna get to 60,000 pounds and then get frustrated and kind of get stuck there. So what I think is you should set your goal to be bigger, if your goal is a million pounds a year you will get to about 600,000. So would you rather be stuck at 60,000 or 600,000? I say set bigger goals.”
