Friendship Games : Norco’s Coach and Quarterback Have a Special Bond as the Campbells Are a Successful Father-and-Son Team

When Norco High football Coach Gary Campbell talks about his team’s star quarterback, he sounds like any proud coach.

“He knows how to read defenses,” Campbell said. “He’s a very smart kid. He has just a cannon for an arm.”

But it is more than coach’s pride that lights up Campbell’s eyes when he thinks of his quarterback.

It is also a father’s pride.

Campbell’s son, Steve, has led Norco to an 11-0 record and put the Cougar’s in a position to win their second consecutive CIF Southern Section Division V championship.

The Cougars have outscored opponents, 403-41, including five shutouts, this season.

Because Norco has overwhelmed its opponents, Campbell usually has been on the sideline during the second half. Still, he has completed 63 of 113 passes for 1,186 yards, including 17 touchdowns and eight interceptions.

Steve, 6-feet-7, 200 pounds, is one of the state’s best quarterback prospects and has his pick of colleges. He has narrowed his choices to Arizona State, Miami, San Diego State, Texas and Washington State. He will decide before the Feb. 2 national signing date.

It is not surprising that Steve has developed into a talented football player. Gary has been Norco’s coach for 25 years and football always has been a part of Steve’s life.

The sport also has been a bond between father and son. And although both are excited about Steve playing at college next year, they know it will mark the end of their coach-player relationship.

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Over the past three years, the Campbells have grown close.

They ride to school together in the morning and talk about football. After practice, they drive home together. More talk of football. At the dinner table, still more football.

“He learned a lot and we got really close at that time, but it also set some things in motion that hurt,” Gary said.

Because of their fierce competitiveness, they sometimes butt heads on the field.

Gary, 50, knows what buttons to push to rile Steve enough to play well.

“He yells at me and I get mad,” Steve said. “I don’t ever yell back because then I’ll be sitting in the locker room.”

If Steve’s passing is unsatisfactory to Gary’s tastes, the coach will yell from the sidelines, “You think you’re an All-American, trying to finesse the ball? You think you’re too good for this team?”

Then Steve gets angry and starts throwing the ball hard, like Gary wants.

On the ride home, Steve will sit next to his father without saying a word. But Gary will talk to him and ask questions until Steve is forced to answer. Once they start talking, the emotions of the game usually melt away and they are friends again.

Sometimes, though, the intensity of the field doesn’t melt so quickly.

“They come home at times and I know they think they hate each other,” said Leanne Campbell, wife and mother.

That’s when Leanne becomes the mediator. She talks to them separately, soothing hurt feelings and telling each to swallow his pride. Eventually, they come around.

There is no doubt that life revolves around football in the Campbell home.

Leanne, 41, said that she and her husband have been married 23 “seasons.” She has missed two games during that time.

Eldest daughter Traci, 19, sometimes can be found on Norco’s sidelines taking statistics.

Jamie, 16, attends Corona High and is interested in Steve’s college career, but for her own reasons. When college coaches call, Jamie walks by the phone and says to Steve, “Tell them you have a little sister, and she would like a scholarship, too!”

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Despite being around the sport all his life, Steve’s early years gave little indication that he would become a star football player.

Gary would toss a football to Steve when he was a toddler, and Steve would immediately tumble to the ground.

At age 4, Steve had quite a scare as the Norco ball boy. He ran on the field to pick up a ball and the referee sent him off the field to the opposing sideline.

Suddenly, Steve found himself surrounded by big football players he didn’t recognize. He began to cry.

Four years later, Steve’s parents held him out of youth football because they did not want to push him into the sport.

Finally, at age 9, he got his chance. His parents set him loose on the youth leagues and Steve showed he was a talented center and linebacker, like Gary had been at Northern Arizona from 1961-65.

Campbell became Norco’s quarterback because of an unexpected turn of events during his freshman year.

Kyle Wachholtz was the team’s quarterback from 1988-1990 before graduating and going on to become USC’s backup.

Ryan Fien, currently a reserve quarterback at UCLA was being groomed to take over for Wachholtz. But Fien transferred to Simi Valley Royal, where he started for three years, leaving Gary looking for another quarterback prospect. His eyes fell on his son.

With help from his dad, Steve adapted quickly.

“You could see he had potential right off the bat,” Gary said.

The problem was that Steve was a bit of a big, clumsy kid. So Gary gave him extra workouts to improve his mobility.

The work paid off. In Campbell’s sophomore year, he started and completed 79 of 163 passes for 1,445 yards and 12 touchdowns.

But during his junior year, Campbell’s scholarship hopes were nearly shattered.

During the second game of the season Campbell suffered a broken leg when a player came down on top of him while he was rushing.

“The first thing that went through my mind was that my career was over,” Campbell said.

The doctors predicted that Campbell would not play for the rest of the season.

Campbell worked every day with a trainer. Two weeks after his cast was removed, he returned to the field and led the Cougars through the final two games of playoffs, including a 21-12 victory over Indio in the section championship.

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Football practice is beginning one afternoon at Norco and Gary and Steve are charging toward the field, racing each other to avoid being the last one to practice.

There is no penalty for being the last guy, other than the indignity of having lost the race.

In a way, the two are racing against time. Soon, these afternoons together on the Norco football field will end.

“It’s something I wouldn’t trade for anything in the world,” Gary said.

But the day will come that Steve moves on to bigger fields and Gary must watch him from the stands.

Then, there will be no more coach and player. There will just be a close father and son.