Cam Bynum on Giving Back and “Securing the Bag”

Vikings safety Camryn Bynum has been a fan favorite since filling in admirably for Harrison Smith as a rookie last year. The fourth-round pick from Cal has since transitioned into the starting free safety role in his second season and may very well be on his way to securing that all-important second NFL contract.

While Bynum isn’t making the big-time dollars of some of his veteran peers quite yet, he’s putting what he currently has to good use by giving back now while still investing for the future. This week on “The Bag with Rashad Jennings and Lindsay McCormick” from Sports Illustrated, Bynum joined NFL alum Rashad Jennings to discuss his philanthropy, investment strategies, and how the younger generation of NFL stars has an evolved strategy when it comes to building long-term wealth compared to their predecessors.

Bynum talked about doing philanthropy work in the Philippines, and the personal importance of giving back:

That’s everything to me, being able to serve. Especially with my faith, I make sure that before I do anything–get all this money in football–I’m doing something bigger than myself. I’m half Filipino and half Black so being able to go back to the Philippines and do work out there that’s my passion right now that I really fell in love with. After my rookie season, I was able to go out there for the first time and be able to give back there…we weren’t even able to raise that much money, but the little we were able to do for everyone out there, the typhoon victims and poverty, seeing all that was a wake up call to me–especially in my family’s country in the Philippines. I really just fell in love with being able to do that and serve there.

It wasn’t that much money, but $20,000 in the Philippines–we were able to help thousands of people. We did three different outreaches out there over a whole week, and were able to feed a bunch of families, typhoon victims, people that literally lost their homes, entire neighborhoods wiped out by typhoons.

Camryn also has an interesting opinion about the Name, Image, Likeness (NIL) income that many college athletes are now earning. He says he’s GLAD he missed out on it:

I’m kind of glad I wasn’t there for it because that was the true season of like–you know how you picture JUCO ball like everybody just getting it out the mud? That’s what it was like in college, especially in the Bay Area our stipend wasn’t that much so all of our money went straight to rent…So it really felt like we were getting it out the mud but a part of me thought that was lowkey fun, the grind of “Okay, I HAVE to go to the League because I’m not trying to live like this forever”. Mentally, I’m kind of glad that it built something in me to really have to grind–because I couldn’t imagine being in college and making a million dollars off of NIL. And I feel like human nature: some people’s grind might not be as heavy if they’re making that much money in college, if they’re making that much money in college. But I’m happy for the dudes getting it now, because we should have been paid.

You can listen to the show with this link or in the player below. Bynum’s interview starts at the 30-minute mark.