From the Sidelines with Kam Wicker | Not Goodbye, Just See You Soon

OXFORD, Miss. – If you’ve never seen me sprinting through the Grove before an Ole Miss football game, iPhone in hand on the way to Vaught-Hemingway Stadium; rumbling up and down the SJB Pavilion stairs on my less-than-stellar, but still-young knees; or walking onto Swayze Field to chat with Coach Mike Bianco and players during my time writing for The Rebel Walk – then let me properly introduce myself.

I’m Kameron Wicker, but most people call me Kam. I’ve been the “man on the ground” for The RW for nearly four years. I started as an intern, submitting my first piece on the 2021 Ole Miss football team’s bowl game hopes to the one and only Evelyn Van Pelt – on a Word document, nonetheless – just like I’m writing this column now. But before I take you through my journey in college and sports media, I want to say thank you to a few important people that played huge parts throughout my time in Oxford.

To Evie – You gave a kid from humble beginnings a voice and a platform to tell stories. For that, I’ll never be able to thank you enough. I’ve worked for several years now under the publication you started from the ground up, and I’ve yet to meet someone in your position who is as genuine and kind as you are. You’ve set a high bar for every managing editor I’ll ever work for. I’ve found not just an editor for life, but a lifelong friend.

To Zach Moreth – You always call me “the man,” but truthfully, I think the same of you. We started as co-workers and became great friends along the way. Anytime I was overwhelmed with my busy schedule, you stepped in and picked up the slack – and did it without complaint. But you’re far more than someone who fills gaps. You’re forever a crucial part of this team, and I know Evie would echo that same sentiment.

To Jeff Roberson – I never had a mentor growing up, but when people ask me now, your name is the first that comes to mind. The stories you share, the tips you give – they’ve stayed with me. You’ve helped shape me as a writer more than you probably realize, and I’ll always consider you an Oxford legend when telling my story. Thank you for everything.

To everyone else – the writers, editors, fans and friends I met through The Rebel Walk – I appreciate you more than you know. So here we go. Buckle up. Evie didn’t give me a word count…

Again, I submitted my first article in November of 2021. After winter break of freshman year, I assumed Evie had moved on. I hadn’t written much since I had gone home to Delhi, Louisiana for the holidays, and I figured I was out of sight, out of mind. But in late January 2022, she messaged me and asked if I could attend Ole Miss baseball media day. I thought I’d be shadowing someone – I wasn’t. I showed up alone, 19 years old, no clue how to write in AP style, and terrified to ask questions. But I did. I only asked two – both to players – but I showed up, and that was the start.

That spring, I covered a handful of non conference baseball weekends from the Swayze press box. You can still find those stories – I revisit them sometimes for a laugh. At the time, I was still an integrated marketing communications major with no real clue what I was doing. I didn’t switch to journalism until the fall of sophomore year, and Evie stayed patient with that as well. If you scroll through my author page, you’ll notice a gap between my freshman year coverage and my return the next spring. That’s because Ole Miss baseball went on the most magical run in school history – winning the 2022 national title. And I wasn’t in Oxford to cover it.

Why didn’t I go to Omaha? Another fair question. I wasn’t in Delhi, either. I was crashing with my friend Lane Henson in Monroe, Louisiana, not yet locked into a lease in Oxford. Do I regret not going? Almost every single day. I’ve made a vow since: I’ll never miss another Ole Miss team playing for a title. Truthfully, it just wasn’t in the cards for me at the time – or the budget – for a 19-year-old from a small town USA. And that’s ok. Evie understood. Eventually, so did I.

By spring of sophomore year, I was back in the saddle and covering games regularly. I spent that fall in the student section watching a football team start 8-1 and finish 8-5. What a heartbreaker that game against Alabama was – still makes me tremble. I always thought, maybe one day I’ll write about games like these. Although, I didn’t know “one day” would arrive so soon.

That winter brought ups and downs – including my roommates and I having to find a new living situation at the last second due to construction and landlord changes at our current apartment complex. 

Back on the sports side, Kermit Davis’ final season with Ole Miss men’s basketball ended in disappointment, however, he is still respected for the memories in Oxford. On the women’s side, Coach Yo and her squad pulled off a stunner – upsetting No. 1-seeded Stanford and making a Sweet 16 run.

That run brought my first real on-camera experience, too. Evie and TJ Oxley asked me to record a podcast about Team 48’s March Madness journey. I was nervous, stiff – but I did it. And now, I’m more comfortable on camera than ever. That shy 20-year-old began to come out of his shell. Yes, Ole Miss fell to Louisville in the Sweet 16, led by Hailey Van Lith at the time. But that postseason opened the door to what’s become a sustained rise back to the spotlight for Coach Yo’s program.

That spring, I returned to the Swayze press box. I started becoming “the live updates guy” on X – which many of you have probably replied to at some point throughout the years. I also covered the worst season in Bianco’s tenure – a 6-24 SEC record with no postseason berth. At the same time, I got my first taste of football coverage during spring camp. With transfer portal chaos in full swing, the beat was demanding – and I loved it.

Summer brought its share of highs and lows, but as I look back now, it helped shape who I am now. When classes resumed, I entered my junior year – 18 credit hours, a part-time job, and a basically full-time writing schedule. My peers hit the Square on weekends, but for me, storytelling was the college experience.

Evie called again in early August 2023: Coach Yo and her team were holding a press conference ahead of an international exhibition trip. She asked if I could be there. I didn’t hesitate. That’s when I realized I had become someone Evie trusted to be on the ground – nearly every day.

Then came fall camp. My first football media day. I covered the quarterback battle between Jaxson Dart, Spencer Sanders and (kind of) Walker Howard. During my first season in the football media booth, Ole Miss surged to 8-1 before Georgia handed them a humbling beat down in Athens. That defeat crushed their playoff hopes, but the Rebels rebounded to finish with 10 wins – and a Chick-fil-A Peach Bowl victory over Penn State that gave them an 11th win. I didn’t make the trip to Atlanta, but covering that postseason game from home taught me just how time-consuming the beat can be. 

The 2024 season hype? It started before confetti even hit the turf at Mercedes-Benz. That walloping in Athens turned out to be the biggest wake up call in recent Ole Miss football history.

Basketball helped carry me through a tough junior spring semester. First year head coach Chris Beard took a 12-win men’s team and turned it into a 20-win squad. It wasn’t an NCAA Tournament bid, but the foundation was there – and suddenly, men’s hoops mattered again at Ole Miss. Beard brought energy, high-profile recruits and intensity to the job.

On the other side, Coach Yo did what she always does: win. Another top-four SEC finish. Another NCAA Tournament appearance. Another first-round win. The Round of 32 loss to Notre Dame stung, but it confirmed what we all already knew – the standard had officially been raised and the fans wanted postseason basketball at the Pavillion.

Baseball season began and entered my third year in that media booth – starting to become more and more comfortable as a journalist. However, the 2024 season wasn’t much kinder to the Rebels. After retooling the roster in the offseason and attempting to rebound from a historically poor year, the pieces just never quite clicked this time either. Injuries, inconsistency and tough SEC weekends plagued the team from start to finish. Swayze still rocked on warm Oxford nights, hope was there mid-to-late season, but the results on the field didn’t match the energy in the stands. It was a step forward in some ways, sure, but not the standard the program hoped to live up to.

As a Liam Doyle pitch left the stadium in Hoover to end the season for the Rebs, I found myself preparing to begin my senior year of college. The finish line was in sight, though it still didn’t feel real. My roommate Brent Lee and I (Of THREE YEARS. Of course, he was my closest friend in college) planned another apartment change. That didn’t go smoothly either as we crashed in another friend’s man cave for three weeks waiting for our next lease to begin. But that didn’t stop me from writing because the 2024-25 Ole Miss sports calendar was about to take off. 

On top of double-time at two part-time jobs during the summer, I covered fall camp in the late summer as the hype became very, very real for Ole Miss football. 

The 2024 season came with more anticipation than any in recent memory, pretty much in any Ole Miss sport if I am being honest. Lane Kiffin returned a loaded roster headlined by a veteran quarterback in Jaxson Dart and a transfer class that looked like something out of a video game. “The last dance” buzz filled the air as Oxford braced for a possible College Football Playoff run. Game after game, Vaught-Hemingway Stadium swelled with 60,000 strong – but things didn’t quite go as planned.

I covered from the booth again as the Rebels rolled through non conference play, outscoring opponents by triple digits and sat inside the top 10 of the national rankings. But when SEC play hit, the cracks started to show. A sloppy, gut-wrenching home loss to Kentucky slowed momentum – man, I was on the sideline when that game-tying kick hooked wide-left. Another absolute heart-breaker at LSU turned early optimism into unease – I actually traveled to Death Valley to watch that one from the stands with my father and friends. The bounce-back win against Arkansas and a redemption blowout over Georgia gave the season new life and playoff hopes – but the Rebels got swamped in Gainesville by the DJ Lagway led Gators to ultimately seal the fate of the season. The playoff dreams? Gone. Just like that.

Ole Miss finished 10-3 after dominating Duke in the Gator Bowl, securing back-to-back 10-win seasons for the first time in more than half a century. But for a team with playoff aspirations, it didn’t feel like enough. Lane Kiffin said as much after the season, and deep down, I think a lot of fans agreed. The highs were real. The disappointment? Just as real.

While football ended, basketball came knocking once again. On the women’s side, Coach Yo kept building, stacking another strong non-conference slate with the eyes locked on March. Behind a ferocious defense and battle-tested core, the Rebels reached their third straight NCAA Tournament. A team full of seasoned veterans with a touch of young talent pushed through the finish line with a big late-season win in Baton Rouge on their way to the second Sweet 16 appearance of the Coach Yo era. No, there wasn’t playoff basketball in Oxford. Yes, people were made, especially being just one seed too low. But the Rebels powered all the way to Spokane before falling to a No. 1-seeded UCLA. It felt disappointing, but again, the expectations continued to rise. 

On the men’s side, year two under Chris Beard saw more stability. Wins were harder to come by in a deeper SEC, but the direction of the program felt like it was trending in the right direction. Beard brought in high-profile recruits and transfers that helped secure program-defining wins over teams like Alabama, Kentucky and Tennessee. Ole Miss closed the regular season 24–12 (10–8 SEC), with their first winning conference record since 2020–21 and earned a No. 6 seed in the NCAA Tournament. Behind miraculous performances throughout the March from Sean Pedulla and company, the Rebels advanced to the Sweet 16 – their deepest run in over two decades – before falling in a tight game to Michigan State. For Ole Miss hoops, it was a season of growth, culture and real belief in something bigger than making it to March. 

Baseball returned in 2025 with renewed purpose after two underwhelming seasons. Ole Miss was doubted, picked to finish second-to-last in the conference. However, the Rebels posted a 43–21 overall record, including a 16–14 mark in SEC play. Despite the strong finish to the season, playoff hopes were still in question. I got the chance to cover the SEC Tournament from Hoover this time around and watched the Rebels clinch their NCAA Tournament bid with a win over a red-hot Florida team. I returned home to Oxford for the next two games, not thinking Ole Miss would do what they did, but just like that I looked up and the Rebels were matched up against Vandy in the SEC Tournament final. So what did I do? Remember, I made a vow to myself to never miss another title game Ole Miss plays in – so I didn’t. I caught a ride with Jeff Roberson and 247 Sports’ Chase Parham back down to Hoover, but the road trip back home was not a winning one. 

Despite the loss to Vandy, Ole Miss had done enough and earned their first NCAA Tournament bid since the 2022 national title. Oxford hosted a regional for the first time since 2021, but as we all know from recent memory unfortunately, that run ended with a heartbreaking exit to Murray State. Still, this season marked a significant turnaround, reestablishing Ole Miss as a force and sending a message: expectations have been reset.

In the midst of it all, graduation day arrived. Late in the regular season (the weekend Ole Miss dropped the series to Mississippi State in Starkville to be exact), I graduated from the University of Mississippi with a bachelor’s degree in journalism. It was a long, hard-fought journey, but I could not be more proud of myself for doing it in four years time with all the obstacles that stood in the way. 

After four years rushing through the Grove, the Pavillion and Swayze, camera in hand – I walked across that stage to grab my diploma, putting that accomplishment in my pocket and leaving a lifetime of experiences behind me. I’ve covered it all – from walk-offs to blowouts, quarterback battles to bracketology, big wins to collapses, the pressers and to the press boxes, to heartbreak and history. I interviewed Oxford heroes and helped tell the stories of a university and town that embraced me when I was just a nervous kid from Delhi. I leave Oxford a different person than the one who walked onto campus in the fall of 2021. Four years, countless stories, and a lifetime ahead of me.

So, you made it this far into my story – don’t worry, this is where I wrap it up. I still can’t believe I am here, but at the same time, I expected to do big things one day. I have said all of this not to boast, but to allow the people who followed me from day one to have a glimpse into my college experience. Without this, there is no telling what I would be doing now. Thanks to The RW and Evie, I got the chance to live out dreams while also making college memories. 

With all of that word salad I just threw at you, I have typed all of this to ultimately say one thing. During the beginning days of June (the same weekend Ole Miss baseball learned they’d be playing in an Oxford Regional), I accepted a role as the new Sports Editor for Gulf Coast Media in Foley, Alabama. I will be covering the vibrant high school sports scene on the Gulf Coast of Alabama while diving into sports tourism, the economics of sport and other trending commercial sports in the area.

Fortunately enough, my new bosses there allow freelance opportunities so long as there are no conflicts of interest. With that being said, I will no longer be a week-to-week reporter/editor for The Rebel Walk – instead I will be a contributor to the site and you will continue to see my face pop up again from time-to-time. Evie and I have discussed this for quite a while now, more and more as my graduation date approached. I will forever be more than willing to help out and make appearances for The RW, but it’s time for me to start the next chapter of my life and enter the full-time sports media world. I have always wanted this – and if you know me, I live, breath and die by sports. It is quite literally my life. 

So, I am headed to Gulf Shores. Yeah, I know, what a landing spot that is for a freshly graduated sports journalist. I am more excited than ever to see where this road takes me and I will never be able to truly express how grateful I am for what the RW community did for me. For those of you I did not get the chance to thank: Thanks for reading. Thanks for following along in times that weren’t so bright. Thanks for believing in me.

This isn’t goodbye, this is just see you soon.