By Michael A. Lough

The Sports Report

centralgasports@gmail.com

            It has been lingering around Fort Valley, and the Central Georgia high school football community for months.

            Before the summer started. Before preseason camp began. And before the first kickoff of 2022.

            Chad Campbell was retiring after the 2022 season.

            He had reportedly told his staff several months ago, and it popped up regularly in area high school football conversations. Names have been bandied about for several weeks, some very notable Central Georgia names among them, but more and more, the topic cropped up as the season wound down.

            “Is Chad Campbell really retiring?”
            Yes.

            And it’s official, publicly, as of Wednesday afternoon.

            But Campbell said the decision was made in the past few weeks, and the first person – after praying and crying and talking with his wife - he told was Peach County superintendent Dr. Lionel Brown, and the second person was new principal Dr. Jesse Davis, now tasked with hiring Peach County’s first head coach since Rance Gillespie left after a 14-1 state championship season in 2007, which followed the same result (and 12-3 record) in 2005.

            “I ain’t told nobody that,” Campbell said in a half-hour dinner-time conversation Wednesday with The Sports Report about making the decision months ago. “I just told people it was my 30th year, I ain’t said nothing about going out.

            “People speculate all that time. I ain’t told anybody (bleep).”

            Campbell told coaches on Tuesday and Wednesday, and had a players meeting at 1:30 p.m. on Wednesday.

            It was posted on Twitter by the AJC at 5:25 p.m. Wednesday. A post on the 247sports.com high school message board about an hour before that said he had met with the players and “word is that he’s retiring.”

Campbell through the years
2022 8-4
2021 8-4
2020 9-2
2019 11-12
2018 12-3 State runner-up
2017 13-2 State runner-up
2016 12-2 Semifinals
2015 9-3
2014 10-1
2013 8-4
2012 11-2
2011 13-2 State runner-up
2010 13-1 Semifinals
2009 15-0 State champions
2008 8-3
2007 8-3

Career record: 168-38
Region championships: 2022, 2-20, 2-19, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2014, 2011, 2010, 2009
State championships: 2009
Ranked (AJC) every regular-season week from Aug. 26, 2016 to Nov. 8, 2021

             The word was true.

            “It hurts,” Campbell said. “It’s tough. All the relationships. I’ve had the same booster club, I’ve been knowing them. Same ones stuck with me when I became head coach, been there ever since. Fed us dinner on Sunday for 30 years.

“Got kids of kids (playing) now.”

            The players meeting was the toughest.

            “Without a doubt,” Campbell said. “That’s what I’m in it for. I ain’t in it for nobody else. Relationships, you know?”

            The 53-year-old Hawkinsville grad said he came to the decision recently, after a Thursday practice.

            “I always said nobody’d have to tell me when to go,” he said in a dinner-time phone call with The Sports Report, during which he got 10 more texts and three phone calls. “I would know. I think the Lord told me it was time.

            “I got home one day and talked with my wife. Decided it was time for them to hear a new voice.”

            The 2023 season will be the first without Chad Campbell since 1993, when Neal Rumble and Hawkinsville head coach Jeff Caldwell were talking, and Caldwell said his former quarterback was getting done college at Georgia Southwestern. Rumble remembered Campbell from Rumble’s days at Dodge County (1984-86), the two talked, and Campbell became a Trojan.

            “Got beat in the quarterfinals,” Campbell said of that 11-2 season. “Thomas County Central.”

            Since that 1993 season, Rumble’s last one with the Trojans, Peach County has won at least eight games every season except in 2000 (6-5) and 2001 (7-4).

            Campbell departs Peach County with a sizzling 168-38 record in 16 seasons as head coach, blowing past No. 2 Gillespie (65-16) and No. 3 Rumble (57-15).

            He is tied for 23rd among active coaches in Georgia in wins, equal with Brentwood’s Bert Brown and one win ahead of Macon County’s Dexter Copeland.

            Of active coaches with at least 100 games, his winning percentage of 81.6 percent is fourth (behind John Milledge’s J.T. Wall/90.7, Marist’s Alan Chadwick/84.3, and Camden County’s Jeff Herron/82.6).

            He has a higher winning percentage than state legends Dan Pitts, Luther Welch, Bill Chappell, Nick Hyder, T. McFerrin, and Ray Lamb, as well as Central Georgia legends Barney Hester, Ronnie Jones, Rodney Walker, Billy Henderson, Rick Tomberlin, and Conrad Nix, to name a few in the both groups.

            Campbell has never been one to pay any attention to such things, focused more on how many games Peach County was going to play in that specific season.

            The Trojans went 48-9 from 2016-19, with two championship trips and one to the semifinals, plus a quarterfinal visit.

            They’ve gone 25-10 in the three years since, and lost in the second round for the first time since 2015 on Nov. 18, 23-7 to Savannah Christian, after three straight quarterfinal trips.

            “Maybe somebody can get ‘em over the hump, you know?” he said. “We’ve been stuck in this rut in the quarterfinals the last few years. I don’t know. Maybe it’s time for somebody else to try and reach ‘em.”

            It was an odd season for the Trojans, who started the season ranked eighth in GHSA AAA. They went 8-4, with two losses by the same 35-7 score, scoring seven points in three losses and six in another.

            “The first half of the year, we were good one week, bad the one week, good one week,” he said. “Just a roller coaster ride. It was all attributed to the sway hey practiced. Not good practice habits, not good preparation habits.

            “Then we got on a roll, started playing better. Then that 12th game, kind of like those bad weeks early in the year.”

            The Trojans were also without starters Christian Martin, Skielar Mann, and Isaiah Mitchell.

            “That didn’t help the cause out,” Campbell said. “That didn’t have any effect on the way we played.”

            Campbell departs with stellar records against some of the top teams in the area and state: 10-2 vs. Perry, 8-1 vs. Mary Persons and vs. Westside, 5-2 vs. Baldwin, 5-0 vs. Macon County. The only team that got the better of Campbell’s Trojans in regular meetings: Northside, 3-2.

            Carver-Columbus, and Shaw and Cedar Grove went 2-0 against Campbell, with eight others going 1-0. Five other teams went .500 against him.

            The Trojans’ staff has been one of stability in this century.

            Rickey Wray has been at Peach County for 29 years. Defensive coordinator – and longtime head baseball coach - Jeff Bailey was there for 27 years, leaving after the last school year for Crawford County. Bruce Mackey has been alongside for more than 20 years, and Craig Johnson for a dozen or so.

            Former players Sherwin Lyons and Deitrich Everett have been on staff for more than a dozen years.

            Older brother Lee Campbell has been at Peach County for eight seasons, and he’s retiring as well.

            “It’s like breaking away from your family, you know?” Campbell said.

            Campbell said several times there was no one thing or game or play or conversation.

            “It’s time to go,” he said. “That’s all I can say. It just hit me. It was, ‘What can we do to make this thing better? What’re we going to do to fix it?’”

            Campbell decided that new voices might be the best answer.

            “It’s time for them to have a change. That’s what it boils down to. Time for somebody else to have a voice, them listen to somebody else, besides me.”

            Is Campbell, at age 53, done coaching? Doubtful.

            “We’ll see what comes up,” he said. “I’m retiring from public school education. I don’t know what’s in store for me.”

            The adjustment period will take awhile. Learning to kill time that doesn’t involve football will be a major task. What does he do for non-football fun stuff?

            “Fun stuff?” he asked. “Getting kids ready for the next year. That’s what’s been my life.

            “I’m just trying to absorb everything that I’ve done the last couple days, answering text message and phone calls. I haven’t thought about tomorrow yet.”

            And that’ll be his first day starting a new chapter.

            “I’m at peace with my decision, “he said. “I knew at some point in time it would come to an end. I didn’t know when it was.

            “When is it not difficult when you’re in this profession and you’ve been around kids and spent your whole career coaching kids and doing what you love to do? When is a good time, you know?”