A dream come true for a Mount Allison University student with a passion for football.
Julia Cameron, who is studying Marketing at Mount Allison University, spent last month with the Saskatchewan Roughriders after applying for the CFL Women in Football Internship program.
“I sent in my application, and I heard back from Hamilton and Saskatchewan. I had my interviews, and the internship with Saskatchewan was more marketing-based, and the Hamilton one was coaching. Saskatchewan has always been my favourite team. It was very exciting,” Cameron explained.
Cameron, who is originally from Nova Scotia, has one year left of school at Mount Allison University. She helped the football team with marketing during training camp.
She thinks she was chosen because of her experience with marketing and her knowledge of football, which started to come together before she was even a year old.
“I was always told the story of how, when I was 11 months old, I’d be watching football with my dad, and I’d be on the couch with him, and the ref on the TV would do hand signals, and I would do them as well before I could even talk,” Cameron said.
She started playing minor football at age 7, and she was the only girl on the team.
She stopped playing for a few years, but returned to the sport in grade 12.
Cameron says football teaches you so much more than just about the sport itself, “Like how you face adversity in a game, staying level-headed when things maybe aren’t going the best, and being patient and collaborating with the team. In football, you’ve got your entire team behind you, and you all have to work together. One position can’t carry the team; you all have to collaborate, and that’s carried over into real life as well.”
She also feels the game has taught her to be confident in a male-dominated space, which has carried over to her wanting to pursue a career in sports.
“Saskatchewan has a huge amount of women in leadership with the team, so in the marketing department, I worked under some very strong women. It has been cool to learn from them and how they got to where they are. Taking advice and shadowing them to learn how I can continue to pursue this dream,” Cameron expressed.
She has this advice for any girls or women with an interest in football: “Try not to let the fear stop you. Enter the room and be confident in your abilities and your knowledge of your education, as well as maybe your knowledge of the game. Use your confidence, learn from other women, and don’t let the fear stop you from trying, because once you enter, you’ll fall in love with it. It’s amazing.”
