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.”