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Nine years ago, Cameron Wake couldn’t envision anyone paying $275 a plate to hear him speak at an amateur football fundraising dinner.

He was still trying to imagine himself as a professional football player, never mind a motivator in the flourishing lecture circuit as a contemporary sports hero.

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But when he bounds on to the stage tonight as the keynote speaker for the B.C. Lions’ annual Orange Helmet Awards, those in attendance at the Westin Bayshore will carefully consider whether or not they have the same attitude and drive that allowed an NFL castoff to ascend to the heights of a four-time Pro Bowler.

“It would have been hard to wrap my head around that idea back then,” Wake admitted Wednesday, before boarding a flight for Vancouver. “It’s truly been an amazing journey to take me where I am today.”

Before his Vancouver audience, the face of the Miami Dolphins will recall one of the worst days in his professional life, when his timing, not his technique, was regarded as inherently flawed.