Cam Ward is ready to electrify the NFL — just like his father does for the south Texas grid.
September 5, 2025
minute read time
When first overall draft pick Cam Ward takes the field for the Tennessee Titans this NFL season, he’ll have his family back in Texas rooting for him — along with a 1,200-person cheering section in a surprising place: the state’s largest nuclear power plant.
Calvin Ward, Cam’s father, started his career in nuclear energy long before the budding superstar quarterback was born. For the past 35 years, he’s been with the South Texas Project Electric Generating Station (STP), where he works in nuclear fuel purchasing.
Located 90 miles southwest of Houston, STP is the fourth-largest nuclear plant in the nation. Its two reactors generate 2,700 megawatts of electricity and provide reliable energy to two million Texas homes.
Calvin said most of the plant’s 1,200 employees are Cowboys and Texans fans, but they’re making an exception for their hometown hero.
“Yeah, the plant is rooting for [Cam],” Calvin Ward said. “Plus, a lot of them are college football fans, so they were already following him to begin with."
Calvin’s job is to purchase uranium fuel for the plant to keep its reactors running around the clock for 18 months at a stretch.
He originally worked a summer temp job at STP, which was just down the road from where he grew up. He landed a full-time position after graduating from the University of Houston, thinking that he would stay for a short time then move elsewhere.
“My thought process was that I would be here for two years to get some experience, then I wanted to go back towards Houston,” he said.
Now, more than three decades later, he says he doesn’t regret staying.
“I think a big thing was the four-day work week we had here, that was invaluable. I got a three-day weekend, Friday through Sunday, and that schedule had a lot of value.”
When asked how much Cam knew about his work growing up, Calvin said he frequently took his children with him when traveling to the annual Nuclear Energy Institute (NEI) conference in various cities around the United States.
“I always said I wanted my kids to see everything they could possibly see,” Calvin said. “When I went to college it was a struggle, because I’d never really been away from home. So I wanted them to feel that when it’s time for them to go to school, it doesn’t matter where you go. You’re comfortable. So I tried to take them to every conference I went to just so they could see different parts of the country.”
Even so, he said Cam never really considered following his footsteps into a career in nuclear energy.
“No, his thing was always, ‘I’m going to go pro in something. I don’t know what it is, basketball, football, baseball — I’m going pro in something,’” Calvin said.
Cam started his college career at small Division 1 school in San Antonio, then transferred to Washington State and later Miami, where he was a Heisman Trophy finalist, before becoming the top pick in the 2025 NFL draft.
Calvin said one of the most notable changes he’s seen during his long career in nuclear energy has been the recent shift in attitudes towards the misunderstood energy source.
“I think the nuclear industry, especially the last few years, has done a much better job on educating people. It’s a very positive time for nuclear energy,” he said.
That change has come with an influx of new coworkers at STP, which he said has been both challenging and energizing.
“I started here at 21, 22 years old, and most of the people who worked with me back then have retired or are about to retire. There’s a lot of new people coming into the industry, a lot of new faces — which is a good thing.”
Looking back, Calvin said he’s proud of his work and would recommend a career in nuclear energy to anyone.
“It’s been very rewarding, I can say that. It’s allowed me to put four kids through college.”
One of them just happens to be the starting quarterback for the Tennessee Titans.