Navy men’s basketball senior Cam Cole recently chatted with PressBox about last year’s 26-8 season, why he’s so close with the other seniors on the team and more. The 6-foot-2, 170-pound guard averaged 6.1 points and 1.6 assists per game and shot 38.5 percent from 3-point range for the Midshipmen in 2025-26. Cole is a native of Bristow, Va., and graduate of Highland School.
PressBox: How did you first become interested in basketball?
Cam Cole: My father, [Ron], played college basketball at Howard University, and he got me started playing basketball really early at my local Boys & Girls Club. I’ve been playing ever since then.
PB: What did your dad teach you about the game?
CC: He taught me everything I know — all the basics. Everything I know about how I play basketball, how I go about my day-to-day life, I learned from my dad.
PB: Your dad was a center. Did he teach you any post moves you can use even as a guard?
CC: Yes, he did teach me some post moves. I do know a decent amount of post moves. My footwork is pretty good. He harped on that when I was younger, so I have a good foundation there.
PB: Why did you choose to go to Navy?
CC: I chose to go to Navy just because of the mission of this place — he people who go here, the like-mindedness of everybody. Everyone’s driven to strive to be the best but also help others along the way. I love the basketball, but honestly that wasn’t the driving factor in choosing Navy. Everything about this place just means something, whether it’s the parades or the service, whether it’s going to class every day like high school. It’s really regimented. It’s something that helped me grow. That’s what I really wanted from this place, was just to grow up. It’s been a huge help for me.
PB: Have you service selected anything yet?
CC: We put in our preferences [recently]. I put Marine Air at No. 1. I’ll be fine with Marine anything, so we’ll see how it goes.
PB: Why do you prefer Marine Air?
CC: I wanted to be a Marine. That’s just the community I vibe with the best, I mesh with the best. Obviously after this I’m probably not going to be part of any highly competitive sports teams anymore, so just finding space where I could be in a competitive team that’s working toward a common goal is most mirrored in the Marine Corps, so that’s why I chose that.
PB: What’s a typical day for you at the Naval Academy?
CC: If we don’t have anything in the morning, we usually wake up around 6:30 to get ready for our first formation at 7. Then we go down to breakfast. We have class from 7:45 to 11:35, then we have a short break for lunch. We start back up with classes at 1:30. We end those at 3:30. Sometimes we’ll have a lift during that little lunch break. It’s either lift or film during our lunch break. Then we’ll go to practice after school. Practice gets out maybe 7ish. Then we have time for homework and dinner. Dinner closes at 8, so we’ve got to get to dinner. The rest of the night is usually homework and catching up with the people in your company.
PB: What’s your favorite thing about Navy?
CC: Definitely the people. Everyone you talk to will say that, but 100 percent the professors, my classmates, the underclassmen, my teammates, my coaches. The people I’ve met here have just been super impactful for me, whether I’m learning something from them or they’re helping me with things or I’m helping them. It’s just been such a good experience for me, meeting all these people.
PB: What was last year’s 26-8 season like?
CC: It was fun for the two hours you’re on the court in a game jersey, but practice was very competitive. Practice was not easy. Practice was hard. I think that’s what made it more fun to get out there on the court and win. Just trying to carry that same work ethic into this year I think would be really helpful for us.
PB: What did you see from Jon Perry in his first year as the head coach?
CC: I think Coach Perry did a good job of keeping us together and playing to our strengths and getting us to where we needed to be and putting us in positions to be successful. He did a really good job of putting together a good staff. It wasn’t just us. It wasn’t just them. The teamwork between both of us was really good. It felt like this is the most connected the staff and the players have been in a while. It’s been good working with them and them getting to know us and getting to know where we succeed and how they can leverage that to make the team be good.
PB: How can this team build off of last year even with five seniors from last year’s team having moved on?
CC: I think the seniors did a good job of helping establish a culture. That’s the real thing we’re going to build off of. I’m not going to say we’re going to play the exact same way we played last year. We don’t have the same players, so we’re going to adjust with that one. But the hard work and the mentality and the teamwork that they infused into our program definitely had lasting effects. We’re just building off that now. Since we have that foundation, I think we’ll find a way to play, we’ll find a way to mesh and we’ll figure out the rest. But having a good baseline has been super helpful for us.
PB: Who’s your best friend on the team and what’s a story that underscores your friendship?
CC: My senior class, we’re all really close. There are five of us: [Nyles Howard, Julian Gabbidon, Jinwoo Kim, Jordan Pennick and me]. We started with 12, so being together with these five guys, working our way through it while our other classmates have either stopped playing ball or transferred. It’s brought us so much closer. We talk about it all the time. We hang out. We get stuff done. We can look at one another and realize we spent all this time together because we want to be here and we put in the time. When we’re off the court and not playing basketball, we’re able to sit back and have good times. Just being able to relate to those guys and spend time with them, those four other guys are my best friends.
PB: Who did you look up to early in your college career?
CC: I would say Mike Woods. He was our captain last year. He’s a year older than me. The way he works, the way he acted, the way he carried himself at all times — not only when he was a team captain — were just things that I really admired about him, things that I cared about before I came. It was really cool to see him put that into action and be the guy that he is and lead the team. No matter where he was on the depth chart, he was a leader in his own right, so I really respected Mike Woods.
PB: What advice would you give to younger players looking into the service academy route?
CC: My advice would be don’t be scared. Don’t be scared of the rumors that it’s super hard because at the end of the day it’s doable. It’s just like anything you’ve ever done with sports. It takes some work, it takes some adjustment, but everyone’s capable of getting through this place. It’s built to help you succeed. I just wouldn’t be scared of the moment with Navy. It might sound like a big commitment, it might sound like a really high mountain to climb, but it’s really not that bad.
Photo Credit: Courtesy of Navy Athletics