For almost three years, Cami Merickel thought NIL was built for somebody else.
Football players. Basketball players. Athletes with bigger names, bigger platforms, and more obvious paths to brand deals.
Not a track and field athlete trying to figure out where she fits.
So, she waited, held back by the same fears we hear from athletes every day. The fear of looking like you’re trying too hard. The fear of teammates seeing it. The fear of posting something and watching it not land.
What finally changed wasn’t a content strategy. It was a purpose.
The younger version of herself, the athlete trying to understand recruiting without a mentor or a clear example, was the exact person she could help.
So, she hit record.
The cost of waiting
When Cami finally started creating content in the middle of her junior year at Nebraska, the thing holding her back was the same thing that had stopped her all along.
“You have this fear of what’s everyone going to think of me?” she said. “When I started, people would poke fun at it, and it’s an easy thing to poke at. You have to get over the hump of you just can’t care.”
That is the hardest part of getting started. It is also the part nobody can do for you.
There is no perfect first post. There is no audience waiting on the other side of a polished video. There is only the version of you who decides to put something out, learn from it, and post again.
We have seen this pattern across thousands of athletes. The ones who get noticed are not usually the ones with the best idea, the best camera, or the most polished content. They are the ones who started before the people around them were ready to.
The bigger sister she didn’t have
When Cami finally started, she wasn’t chasing content for the sake of content. She had someone in mind
“My goal when I started creating content, I always tell people, was that I wanted to be the big sister I never had,” she said. “I wanted to be that bigger sister to younger athletes who are looking to go through that process, and to shed some light on what I wish I had in high school.”
That is where the best athlete brands usually begin. Not with a posting schedule. Not with a perfect niche. Not with a plan to go viral. They begin with a person.
A younger version of yourself. A teammate going through something you have already worked through. A kid from your hometown who doesn’t know college athletics is possible. Someone who needs to see what you wish you had seen earlier.
That is why her content works. She is not posting into a feed. She is talking to somebody on the other side of the screen. The messages in her inbox prove that somebody is listening.
Every athlete has a story
The question we hear most from athletes usually sounds like this.
I go to a small school. I’m in a non-revenue sport. I’m a female athlete. I don’t have a huge following. Is this really for me?
Cami’s answer is simple.
“As a student athlete, you have so much value, and everyone kind of wants to see what that looks like,” she said. “Your school doesn’t matter at all. Your division doesn’t matter at all. Your sport doesn’t matter at all.”
That is the line every athlete in a non-revenue sport should remember.
You are not too small. You are not in the wrong sport. You are not waiting on permission from a bigger platform.
You already have access to a world most people have never seen. The practices. The travel. The routines. The recovery. The small moments that feel normal to you and interesting to everyone else.
The idea that NIL is only for a select group of athletes is based on headlines. But it is not reality. The athletes earning consistently are not always the biggest names. They are the ones who understand their value, build around a clear point of view, and keep showing up.
From hiding behind trends to having a point of view
Cami’s early content was, by her own admission, mostly trending audios and voiceovers. That is how a lot of creators get their start. There is nothing wrong with it. A point of view doesn’t show up on day one.
“It’s so much easier to hide behind a trend,” she said. “If everyone’s doing it, it’s easy to jump on that train. Whereas if you’re creating an authentic video, that’s a lot harder to lump into what everyone else is doing.”
What changed over time was not that she stopped using trends. It was that she figured out what she actually wanted to say.
Her undergrad is in nutrition and exercise science. In distance running, there’s a stigma around what athletes are supposed to look like, and Cami had quietly worked through that pressure herself. Once she got to the other side, she felt a responsibility to talk about it, because she knew how much she needed that voice when she was younger.
That is the arc most athlete creators eventually walk. You start by mimicking what works for others. Then, at some point, you realize the thing you are most equipped to talk about is what you have lived through.
The content gets harder to make and twice as valuable.
What she would tell her 18-year-old self
When we asked Cami what she would tell an 18-year-old version of herself, she answered fast.
“My biggest piece of advice is to be authentic,” she said. “No one else can be you. You have a story built into your life, and that is your greatest advantage. So just be you, share your story, and I promise people are going to want to listen.”
Cami did not have thousands of followers when she started. She did not have a “big sister” to walk her through it. What she had was a story, the same way every athlete has a story. At some point, she stopped waiting and started telling it.
The athletes that brands keep coming back to are the ones who do the same. Not always the biggest names, or even the most followers. It’s the ones who let people in.
But the fears that stopped her for two and a half years are the same fears stopping somebody reading this right now.
Different sport. Different school. Different story. Same starting line.
All of them are sitting where Cami was sitting in 2021. All of them have a story already built into their life, waiting on the same decision.
Hit record.
