FROM GRIDIRON TO GOALS
Michigan’s top high school hockey player excelling because of ... football?
Back in the day, Cam Markham’s best move to get on the ice was begging.
Yes, begging.
“When I was 4, my dad used to make a rink, just a little one, and I always remember wanting my sister to go out and play with me out there,” he said. “I always wanted her to go play goalie because I had no one to shoot on.”
The youngster literally had to stoop to begging his sister, Daytin, who was two years older than him.
“I’d have to beg and beg and beg,” he said, “but eventually she would come out there.”
No money ever changed hands, but Markham was relentless in his pursuit of someone to serve as target practice for him.
“Oh, yes, he begged,” Daytin said. “I think I may have gotten Gatorades from him.”
So Daytin and Cam put on their little ice skates and went outside so he could pepper shots at his sister, who would not describe herself as anything resembling a quality goalie.
“It was fun,” she admitted. “I was never a hockey player, so that’s why the begging to play came in.”
Little did either of them know then, that was beginning of quite a hockey career.
Markham is one of the best high school players in Michigan. He has scored 28 goals and added 31 assists in leading Houghton to a 17-0 record heading into Friday’s home game against Grandville.
The Gremlins are ranked No. 2 in the Michigan High School Hockey Hub’s Super 10 and No. 1 in Division 3.
Growing up in the Upper Peninsula, Markham was always talented, but his size was a potential obstacle to dominating at the high school level.
“I was super-small my eighth grade year, so all of a sudden I had this super growth spurt,” he said. “It was perfect timing.”
Timing is everything. Markham began high school at 5 feet 9, and by his sophomore year he was 6 feet. The next year he was 6-1.
“All along, he was kind of small for his age,” said Houghton coach Corey Markham, Cam’s father. “When he was a freshman in high school, he started to grow and he’s continued to stretch out and fill out and I think that’s the biggest thing that’s happened for him.”
In hindsight, being on the shorter side may have been a blessing in disguise. It forced him to develop solid fundamentals at a young age.
After his growth spurt, Markham had the size to match his fundamentals.
“He was always a little guy and that probably helped,” his father said. “When he was younger and you’re little, you just can’t overpower kids and you have to have parts of your game — your stick handling will have to be good, those types of things. It probably helped him to be little when he was younger.”
Although he was always good when he was young, Markham was never thought of as a can’t-miss prospect. That took time, just like his ability to skate.
“Between his sophomore year, we started a new lifting program,” said the coach. “That put on a lot of strength in his legs and that’s when his skating, his speed and his strength really went up. That’s when his skating really picked up and he got a lot faster.”
Micah Stipech was a teammates of Corey Markham’s in high school and they were college roommates. In addition to being an assistant hockey coach, he is the head football coach.
Markham was called up to the varsity football team as a sophomore and was a three-year starter at quarterback and was also the middle linebacker as a junior.
Stipech is convinced that football has played a key role in Markham’s development as a hockey player.
“The position of quarterback, in particular, transfers really well to hockey,” Stipech said. “Every time you have the puck, you’re a quarterback. You have decisions to make in a rapidly changing environment. You have to have situational awareness and rapid cognition, particularly in an option-based offense.”
Markham’s father was hoping his son would be a three-sport athlete in high school — Cam also helped Houghton win the U.P. golf championship.
Adding football and golf helped develop him into an allaround athlete.
“It’s probably playing sports year-round, honestly,” he said before adding a laugh, “I think football helped me a lot more than golf.”
Football helped him immensely, especially in the toughness department.
“It was learning how to take a hit to make a play; it’s the same thing in hockey,” he said. “And then there’s the physicality of football.”
Houghton is anything but a high school football hotbed. Before Markham’s junior year, the Gremlins had only one winning season since 2001.
This fall, they were 6-4 and made only the fifth playoff appearance in school history.
Being a hockey player also helped him in football. It made him a more effective passer and he excelled at understanding situations.
“In hockey, he’s better than most of the players he plays against; football was harder,” Stipech said. “We weren’t the best team and he wasn’t always better than everybody else, so those are some valuable lessons you cannot get if you’re a single-sport athlete.
“The thing I think he will need to improve his career as a hockey player is the mental fortitude and toughness to get up more times than you’re knocked down.”
Football certainly helped Markham in that department. There was an outside chance that this season might never had happened this way for Markham. There were coaches wondering whether he’d opt for junior hockey instead of playing his senior year at Houghton.
That happens a lot in metro Detroit, but even more so in the U.P. when a town comes up with a player as talented as Markham.
That led Stipech to sharing a story about Red Wings forward Andrew Copp, who elected to play high school football at Ann Arbor Skyline instead of disappointing his teammates and playing for USA Hockey.
“One of the biggest challenges wasn’t on the football field, it was the pressure of everybody telling him he shouldn’t be playing football,” Stipech said. “It’s a great story — the value of staying home, playing with your friends, multiple sports and how valuable to that is to him as a person.”
Hartland hockey coach Rick Gadwa has coached against Houghton every year and has been impressed with Markham’s progression over the last four years.
“To watch Cam grow from a freshman to what he is now — he popped this year,” Gadwa said. “He’s the captain of his football team, captain of his hockey team. It’s that great small town story that’s pretty neat in the whole thing about him.”
Gadwa is also involved in Team Michigan and is a go-to guy for junior scouts trying to evaluate high school players. Like virtually
every top player in the state, Markham will spend a year or two playing junior hockey before heading to college. Last spring, Gadwa was fascinated with Markham he’s even more so now in the high school season.
“When I look at him as a hockey player, he does it the right way,” Gadwa said. “He’s a complete player, a 200-foot player. He’s got skill, obviously, you can see it in how many goals he’s put in so far this year.
“What’s impressive to me is what he does away from the puck. How hard he forechecks. You can see his passion on the ice. He backs it out by just being a great kid.”
This has been a remarkable season for the Gremlins and making it even more enjoyable for Markham has been his teammates.
“I love it, especially playing with the people I’m playing with,” he said. “It’s fun. It’s easy to get assists when they’re super good, too. My best friend, Gabrick Carlson, has played with me on the line. We’ve been together since freshman year.”
Actually, they’ve been linemates since they first took the ice in the Copper Country Junior Hockey Association as 6-yearolds.
“We’ve been together since we were born — forever,” Carlson said. “We clicked right away.”
Growing up, Carlson and Markham dreamt of winning a state championship together and that is no pipe dream now.
“Our depth at forward is super good. We have some young defensemen, but we’re getting them up to speed. Already you can see there’s been major improvement from a lot of them.”
Through the years, Carlson has seen Markham grow and develop. He marvels at Markham’s passing ability, on the rink as well as on the football field, where Carlson was Markham’s top receiver.
But the quality that stands above the rest is Markham’s phenomenal shot.
“His shot is unreal,” Carlson said. “He has awesome hands and he moves the puck. It’s quick, it’s hard, he’s accurate. It’s just all-around good. He’s just a goal scorer. He always finds the net.”
Markham cannot explain how he scores so many goals. It has been a constant since he began firing the puck at his sister.
“It’s always come naturally,” he said. “Always growing up I felt I had a knack for scoring. I just find open area and a lot of
times I put it in the back of the net.”
He may owe Daytin more Gatorade.
Mick McCabe (err, Son of Swami) is a former longtime columnist for the Detroit Free Press. Contact him at mick.mccabe11@gmail.com. Follow him on Twitter @mickmccabe1. Order his new book, “Mick McCabe’s Golden Yearbook: 50 Great Years of Michigan’s Best High School Players, Teams & Memories,” now at McCabe.PictorialBook.com.