THE INDY ELEVEN have just tied Detroit FC, 2-2—newcomer Elvis Amoh got both goals against his old club—and as the stands start emptying, one player is still on the field running sprints.
Number 6, brown hair. The program lists him at 5’10”, but that’s generous. His name is Cam Lindley, and if you’re a soccer fan in Indianapolis, you probably know who he is.
Lindley started his professional career in Major League Soccer with Orlando City. Cam’s sister Cassidy played for a while on the Indy Eleven’s women’s team after stints at the University of Florida and Clemson. Both Lindleys watched their young uncle, Tyler McCarroll, win a state championship at Carmel High School and then play at IU.
Roughly a decade ago, Cam and Cassidy attended Guerin Catholic High School instead of Carmel, but it was Cam who made the decision to transfer halfway through high school. Even though he’d already been pinpointed and fast-tracked as a future professional soccer player, he wanted to keep playing basketball.
“He never had to run at practice, ever,” says Pete Smith, who coached him at Guerin. “I mean less like, ‘All right, on the line guys,’ you know, ‘Be more attentive; pay more attention,’ that kind of stuff. But from the standpoint of, ‘OK, we’re going to run a little bit,’ I would just dismiss him from practice. He would drive to a practice facility for another two hours of soccer. That’s how well-conditioned this kid was, and he outran everybody every single line.”
Lindley was absent for four games during his senior basketball season so he could play in a tournament in Spain, but make no mistake, when Guerin’s Golden Eagles won the school’s second state championship in Indiana’s favorite sport the year before, Lindley was on the hardwood directing the offense.
Even so, Indy Eleven coach Sean McAuley is less impressed with Lindley’s initiative in conditioning after the game against Detroit FC. “You’ve got to realize,” McAuley says, “that these players are all preparing for the game, and if they don’t play, then that’s a lot of energy that needs to be gotten rid of.”
So it’s expected for Lindley to be active like that. But McAuley snuck in the interesting part: Lindley ran afterward because he didn’t play in the match. That doesn’t happen often. But the twice-selected, second-team All-League Lindley is making most of his contributions this season as a reserve.
“Obviously, I’m fit, so it’s been tough,” Lindley admits. “I mean, you’ve got to be honest, right? I’m a competitor. I want to be on the field for every minute, but we have a really good group. We have a lot of experienced older players that have been around the league … but football’s a funny sport, and things can change fast, so all I can do is keep my head down and work. And when I get my chances, you just have to take them.”
Lindley is 27 years old and a father of two children, and sometimes he thinks about a second career in medical sales. That doesn’t mean there isn’t plenty of life left in his soccer career, which is a fact that doesn’t seem lost on the several United Soccer League teams who have inquired the Eleven’s first assistant coach and recruiting director Phil Presser about Lindley’s services.
Indy Eleven Academy grew out of Indiana Fire Academy in 2024 and is the pipeline for local talent to advance to professional soccer. As one indication of just how rich the current pool is, its boys’ U14, U16, and U20 teams all recently won national championships.
Engrossed as he is with regular evaluation and conversations about which players fit at what level, Presser—whose office wall at Grand Park is adorned with dozens of local names like Lauren Holiday, a player who went on to sign professional contracts—has a unique view and insight into what it takes for someone who wants to rise to Lindley’s heights.
“Professionally speaking,” he says, “not many people have that … type of high-end character. He is somebody that—whether he continues to play for five more years or whether he says, ‘You know what? I’m doing to take a job doing whatever’—whoever his boss is, or if he’s the boss, they will want him on their team because he is unbelievable in terms of a team player.”
The academy has had a close eye on other talents Eleven fans may find on the team’s sidelines this season, including midfielder Logan Neidlinger, who chose a professional contract over playing at IU; Maverick McCoy, who will take his defending talents to Notre Dame; and goalkeeper Ryan Hunsucker, who will play in Bloomington. The latter two are on Indy Eleven Academy contracts, which allow them to train and dress for the first team while not taking a salary to hold onto their amateur athlete status.
“People like Maverick and Ryan,” McAuley says, “they should look at [Lindley and Neidlinger] … and go, ‘That’s what I want to be.’”
