Cam McCormick, the longest-tenured player in college football history, will have an NFL career in an off-the-field capacity.

McCormick, who spent a program record seven seasons at Oregon and two at Miami, has been hired as a scouting assistant with the New England Patriots.

McCormick, 27, began his college career at UO in 2016 but was plagued by injuries from 2018-21.

Former teammates at Oregon and Miami lauded the possibility of McCormick fulfilling his dream of reaching the NFL prior to this year’s draft

“He’s never put his dreams aside,” former Oregon tight end Terrance Ferguson said. “He’s leaving it all out there and I think that would be huge for him. I’d be super excited for the guy because he’s a hard worker.”

McCormick had six catches for 42 yards and three touchdowns last season at Miami and eight catches for 62 yards in 2023.

Miami tight end Elijah Arroyo, who was drafted by the Seattle Seahawks with the No. 36 overall pick, shared a meeting room with McCormick for the past two seasons. Arroyo said he learned about persistence from McCormick,

“He’s very selfless,” Arroyo said. “He deserves the world.”

McCormick had 10 catches for 66 yards and three touchdowns at Oregon in 2022, his first full season without injury since his redshirt-freshman year, and earned the Orange Bowl-FWAA Courage Award.

A three-star recruit ranked No. 539 overall and No. 23 among tight ends in the class of 2016, McCormick was in the same recruiting class as Justin Herbert, who completed his fifth season with the Los Angeles Chargers.

After redshirting as a true freshman in 2016 while also recovering from a torn left ACL as a senior at Summit High School, McCormick was one of three UO players hospitalized with rhabdomyolysis following overly strenuous workouts in January 2017. He was the only one not to file a lawsuit against the university, which settled in the other two cases.

McCormick had six catches for 89 yards and a touchdown and three tackles in 2017, then missed nearly all of the 2018-21 seasons due to a broken left ankle he suffered during the 2018 season opener, which required three surgeries, and tore his right Achilles against Ohio State in 2021.

He was granted two additional years of eligibility by the NCAA prior to the 2020 season, which he also missed while eligibility clocks were paused amid the pandemic, and granted another year of eligibility due to the 2021 injury.

McCormick overcame an auditory processing disorder and earned his bachelor’s and master’s degrees from UO.

“He’s been a mentor for me as soon as I got into college he was uncle,” said Moliki Matavao, who played with McCormick at UO for two seasons before transferring to UCLA. “He’s been through so much and was able to teach us — me, (Ferguson), how to be a man on the field, but also a man off the field.”