Have you ever interrupted a coach during a game?
Don’t do it.
Trust me.
I tried… in sixth grade, one year before I started football.
Two minutes left in Coach Campbell’s first game. His seventh-grade team is down six to nothing. The eighth-grade team, led by Coach Felts, is warming up. Coach Felts tells me, “Edge, grab a couple of footballs from in front of Coach Campbell’s bench.”
I dash to the fence behind the bench. As a rule-follower, I decide to get his permission. I call, “Coach Campbell! Coach Campbell!”
He turns around, and with the confidence only a sixth grader can have, I say:
“Coach Felts wants to borrow some footballs. Is it okay if I get some?”
If you’ve ever caught a National Geographic special on volcanoes, you know what’s coming next. That split second before the lava blows? That was Coach Campbell’s face. Behind his lava red skin, he looks at me and bellows:
“I DON’T CARE!
I’M TRYING TO WIN MY FIRST FOOTBALL GAME—AND WE’RE BEHIND. AND YOU’RE ASKING ME ABOUT FOOTBALLS?!”
I grabbed the balls, fulfilled Coach Felts’ request, and learned an important life lesson: Never interrupt a coach mid‑game.
Ever.
Now here’s the irony. Despite that moment—or maybe because of it—Coach Campbell became one of the most influential people in my life.
Which proves something important: Sometimes the people who yell at us the loudest are the ones who care the most. In my case, Coach Campbell chewed me out and coached me up. Looking back, I’m convinced he made it his mission to turn me into a better athlete and a better learner.
I hope Coach Campbell, who truly lived his mission, inspires you. If you haven’t found your mission yet, maybe it’s time to start looking.
To give some context, here’s a little background on Tom Campbell. He grew up in Brockton, Massachusetts—a world away from my small town of Winnsboro in East Texas. Growing up, he desired a career in law enforcement and became a trooper in the Massachusetts Highway Patrol. But after seeing too many tragedies on the job, he decided he needed a change. The turning point was a terrible crash: he heard the cries of a family trapped in a burning car, and no one could save them. That was it. He left law enforcement and chose teaching and coaching instead. Eventually, he found his way to my hometown.
By the time I arrived in eighth grade, I had already heard much about Coach Campbell’s teaching style that would one day become legendary. He wasn’t just a coach on the field—he was on a mission to coach us in the classroom, too. He taught history and language arts, and he was good at it. He made sure we learned with our eyes and our ears. In eighth-grade history, for example, he’d dictate an outline, and we’d write it down—word for word—in our notebooks.
He spoke loudly, making sure even the back row could hear him.
One of our first lessons? The Spanish Armada was sailing toward England to attack in 1588. He explained it. We wrote it.
From his description and visual aids, we saw it. By the end of class, I was convinced I had personally lost ships in that storm.
Sure, he loaded us up with study material for the big exams. But here’s the difference:
We knew exactly what would be on the test.
Coach Campbell wasn’t like the university professors I’d meet later in life.
They’d say, “You’re gonna have a test over this book.”
“Which parts?”
“Anything and everything.”
That wasn’t real teaching. That was just smoke and mirrors, plain and simple.
Coach Campbell said, “I want you to know exactly where the bullseye is—so you can hit it.”
Coach Campbell was tough, but fair. And that made all the difference.
Coach Campbell’s biggest impact was showing us the power of learning by doing. Studying the Constitution and Bill of Rights, we wrote and performed a play about a courtroom trial. Each of us assumed a role, and we truly learned the material.
In eighth-grade language arts, we split into teams, picked a historical event, and wrote our own play to again perform for the school. Around that time, the famous Zapruder film of President Kennedy’s assassination had just come out, and conspiracy theories were everywhere. My team decided to dig into the arrest and assignation of Lee Harvey in Dallas. Coach Campbell reviewed our work and offered advice before we took the stage. I’m certain every one of us remembers something from that project. His approach caught on so quickly that, in the years to come, students staged Civil War reenactments and all sorts of hands-on learning adventures. Coach didn’t simply hand us worksheets. He handed us experiences.
Years later, teaching at my college alma mater, I thought about the kind of teacher I wanted to be. Coach Campbell’s approach stood out above all the rest. I borrowed more from him than anyone else. He had truly left his mark on me.
Of course, Coach Campbell was also an athletics coach. These days, his name is on a middle school athletic building—a tribute to all the lives he touched. He coached me in high school tennis, and I don’t think he ever once yelled at me. Always true to his mission, he led me toward becoming a lifelong learner. I still remember those car rides to my matches with him. We’d talk about history, swap stories about the biographies we were reading, and compare notes. Those rides sparked my lifelong interest in presidential history.
I once read that as we grow up, we move on, but the voices of our best teachers travel with us. After graduating, I went off to college and grad school, and even lived in another country for a while. Still, every so often, I made it back to my hometown and would catch up with Coach Campbell. About twenty years ago, after my family and I moved to Tyler, I heard he was very sick. I bought him a biography of someone he admired and gave it to him. He was too sick to read the whole thing, but he appreciated the gesture. It was sentimental, sure—but it was also an act of love.
Not long after, I got a call from a friend in my hometown. “Coach Campbell is dying. If you want to see him, you need to come now.”
I went. Standing by his bed, I was so glad I did. I thought about the coach who once shouted at me, the man who gave me a love for history, taught me how to teach, and mentored me for life in just five years. I made it my mission to tell him how much he shaped my future. I quietly shared these words: “You have truly made a monumental impact on my life, and I will always remember you.”
For Coach Campbell, it was mission accomplished.
Mark
Dr. Mark Edge
The WorkEdge Company
Telephone: 903-245-7851
Email: workedgetexas@gmail.com
Website: www.workedgetexas.com
Author of Holy Chaos. To purchase the book, click here: https://www.amazon.com/s?k=mark+edge&crid=3B1BM6W3LHOG0&sprefix=%2Caps%2C137&ref=nb_sb_ss_recent_2_0_recent
WorkEdge leverages AI as a resource. While this material was not written or generated by AI, the editing was informed by AI tools.