Payton Kamin had, essentially, done everything in his power to earn what he deserved.
The 6-foot-7 guard had overcome bad injury luck to play in every game this winter. He pushed through adversity to help Worcester Academy capture the NEPSAC Class AA championship, finishing the season as the team’s leading scorer and one of the region’s best performers.
But as the season concluded in early March, a combination of stress, confusion and uncertainty lingered. Kamin was still uncommitted to a college. He looked around and his teammates and most of the 2025 class were committed, their future secured. He knew he was good enough to be a Division 1 player, but coaches weren’t biting. Like many high school prospects around the country, they told them they had to wait on the NCAA transfer portal.
Ultimately, Kamin was rewarded for his patience. On May 24, he announced his commitment to Penn, a dream realized at an Ivy League school that balances basketball with high academics. But like many others, a product of the era he’s playing in, he had to wait longer than most to get there.
“It was a huge relief,” Kamin said. “I had been stressing and thinking about this. My whole life, I always wanted to go to a good academic school, play Division 1 basketball. I knew I was capable of it, it just didn’t come right away just because my path was a little different. … I had faith that it would work out.”
REWIND: Inside Payton Kamin's resurgent season at Worcester Academy
Kamin had a rollercoaster high school career. A highly-touted guard from Chicago, he heard from high-major schools like Kansas, Kentucky and Iowa on the first day of the contact period when he was a sophomore. But after winning a state championship in Illinois as a junior, he ran into bad luck. He was playing lacrosse with some of his friends when he broke his foot, a disastrous injury that forced him to miss the entire AAU season with Illinois Wolves.
Kamin then transferred to Worcester Academy and reclassified, but heading into his repeat junior season, he injured his shoulder. A torn labrum forced him to miss 15 games in the 2023-24 season before he had to make the difficult decision to get surgery, which wiped out another AAU season and another critical spring and summer recruiting period.
But Kamin persevered. He returned this season and played, he believes, even better than he was before the injuries. He averaged 27.6 points and 7.8 rebounds per game while shooting 41.7 percent from 3, landing on our NEPSAC Class AA second team. But still, his recruitment wasn’t where he hoped it would be. Given his injury history, Kamin knew he’d probably have to play out the full season before getting serious traction. But phone calls with coaches didn’t turn into anything tangible besides offers from VMI and Saint Anselm, a Division 3 school, after the season. The transfer portal continued to delay the process, and confusion persisted.
“The consistent feedback that I was hearing from most schools was that I was the top high school prep guy that they were going to take, but they were mainly looking at the portal right now, they weren’t sure if they were going to take a prep guy. They told me they’ll come back to me and tell me if they are and I’d be their first choice. … It was obviously frustrating just because the kids were in the portal, they were prioritizing them because they were older or whatever. …
“What was really confusing was that I was getting a lot of calls, but no one was really offering. They were saying, oh we’re going to come to your open gym, or let’s have you down for a workout. But it was like, would you rather watch a full real game from this past season or an open gym where no one’s playing defense, people are dribbling a hundred times, not even real basketball. That was confusing to me, that they would prioritize that over real game film.”
WAITING GAME: How the NCAA transfer portal is impacting high school recruiting in New England
Boston University invited Kamin to a workout to see how he stacked up against their players, which made more sense to him. But it was hard for him to justify flying to workouts at schools around the country – that hadn’t offered him while he still finished school, though he made one exception for Missouri State. He continued to be confused why game film didn’t carry weight. He stayed patient, even while those around him continued to commit.
“That was honestly the most frustrating part, that everyone around me was committed,” Kamin said. “I just had to keep waiting. I had belief just because I knew the work that I put in and I knew the right school would eventually come.”
It did, in a full-circle way. When Fran McCaffery, the former coach at Iowa, was hired as the new head coach at Penn in late March, Kamin was excited for two reasons. For one, he had been in contact with Penn with the school’s old coaching staff, and he loved the school. And McCaffery, when he was at Iowa, was one of the first coaches to contact Kamin when he was a sophomore. There was a pre-existing relationship with both the coach and the school, and Kamin thought it would be a perfect fit.
“It became my top choice when he got the job,” Kamin said.
McCaffery soon reached out to Kamin and his coaches. There was clear mutual interest, but McCaffery had just started the job and needed time to work through things. He ultimately came through for him in late May, when Kamin announced his commitment.
CHAMPS: How Worcester Academy won its third title in four seasons
At Penn, Kamin will have the opportunity to play for a legendary coach in the legendary Palestra at one of the top academic schools in the country. He’ll join fellow NEPSAC standouts Ryan Altman and Jay Jones this fall, as well as former Worcester Academy star TJ Power, who’s transferring there from Virginia. He couldn’t have asked for anything better.
“Coach McCaffrey, he’s a legendary coach and I’m excited for him to coach me and learn from him, and off the court, I get to go to a school with some of the talented and smartest kids in the world,” Kamin said. “To be in that sort of environment and be challenged on the court and off the court was something I was really looking for.”
Kamin is proud of his journey. It was certainly different than he expected. He was talking with his dad recently about the fact that because he missed two full AAU seasons, he estimated that he lost more than 100 games of development and experience that other recruits got over him. But the adversity he overcame – the injuries, the rehab, the consistent work with his trainer – made the finish line that much more rewarding. In some ways, it made him stronger. He left behind some valuable advice for anyone who goes through a similar experience.
“Just believe in yourself that it’ll work out,” Kamin said. “You might have to be patient like I was, but you’ll find the right school in the end and the school that you truly deserve to be at.”
