AUBURN – Dan Campbell isn’t retiring, he’s just stepping aside.

For Campbell and those who know him, the fact that he is moving at all is enough to cause a stir.

“He puts his heart and soul into everything he does,” Edward Little graduated senior Sam Fletcher said. “It showed how good a coach he was because our team is good every year. I just feel badly that we couldn’t go out on top for him.”

A fixture on the track scene at Edward Little for 21 years, Campbell has decided that between his work as a counselor at the high school and coaching two other varsity sports, his athletes weren’t getting as much attention as he thought they deserved.

“It’s hard, year in and year out, to put that much pressure on yourself on behalf of the kids,” Campbell said. “To give them what they deserve takes a lot out of you after a while and I don’t want their experience to suffer because I am not up to it.”

This year’s athletes on the track and field team knew from the beginning of the season that this would be Campbell’s last as their head coach, and that helped motivate them.

“I told the kids right from the beginning of the season that this was the last season I would be the head coach,” Campbell said. “Some of them were very concerned about going out on top for me, telling me that they’d win the KVAC’s for me. I appreciated it but always told them to win it for themselves first.”

Campbell started coaching at Edward Little in 1983, and has since coached some of the best high school athletes in the state, several of which went on to compete in college. Just in the past five years, Campbell has won two state titles with the boys’ team, one in 1999 and again in 2003.

“I have never met another coach who gives as much to the kids as Dan does,” EL Athletic Director Dan Deshaies said. “He gives so much to them all the time. He opens his house to them and he never hesitates to help when he is needed.”

Still, the constant pressure started to wear on Campbell.

“It’s just time,” Campbell said. “I realized that by the time I got to the spring season I was physically and emotionally drained. I was pretty sandpapered, really, and I have always said that when I don’t have the energy to give the kids what they deserve, then it’s time to step aside and let someone else do the best job possible.”

The always vibrant and outspoken coach will not disappear completely from the Edward Little track program. Campbell’s longtime assistant, Hall of Fame coach Al Harvie, stepped down this season, leaving the assistant position vacant. Campbell said he will fill that role and work exclusively with distance runners.

“I take my job seriously as a track coach,” Campbell said. “Now that I won’t have to worry about 19 different events anymore, I’ll be able to focus my efforts on one particular part of it, which will be better for the kids.”

As for a new head coach, nothing has been officially confirmed by the athletic department other than that there are ongoing talks with a potential replacement.

“The biggest thing for me was that for 21 years I have been doing three sports and juggling that with being a counselor at the school,” Campbell said. “It was just time to take a bit of time off at the end of the year for myself, knowing it was in the kids’ best interest.”

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