‘I Am Excited About the Future of CSM Lacrosse’
The College of Southern Maryland (CSM) has hired Steve Campbell of Prince Frederick as the new head coach for Men’s Lacrosse. “I’m very excited about the position and the future of the team,” Campbell said. “The idea is to prepare these players not only for the next level and to help them get there, but also for life itself outside of college.”
“We are very excited to have Coach Campbell on our staff and head coach of the men’s lacrosse program,” said Michelle Ruble, CSM’s executive director of student life and athletics. “We are energized by his passion and like his vision to develop a fall ball schedule to attract some great players to CSM.”
Campbell said the initial challenge the team faces is recruitment and interest in the sport. “Unfortunately, for the 2018 season we will not have the numbers to field a team,” he said. “I’m planning a very aggressive recruitment plan for this spring and then a very aggressive fall ball schedule, I believe this will lead to the start of a competitive program in 2019.”
“There’s great lacrosse here in Southern Maryland and the plan is to get those student athletes to come here,” Campbell said.
Campbell brings a wealth of Maryland lacrosse experience to the role of head coach position at CSM. He played high school lacrosse first at Southern High School and then at South River High School, where he graduated in 1979. After graduation, he enlisted in the United States Marine Corps where he played on various pick-up lacrosse teams throughout his enlistment and at different duty stations.
In the 1983-84 academic year, Campbell attended Anne Arundel Community College where he played lacrosse, with the AACC team going 16-2 for the season and achieving No. 2 ranking in the NJCAA national polls.
Experiencing that kind of success was a heady introduction to collegiate lacrosse for Campbell and an opportunity for him to see the results of great coaching. Being coached by AACC coach Bud Beardmore, a National Lacrosse Hall of Fame and University of Maryland Athletic Hall of Fame coach, for Campbell was an “honor and privilege.”
“Anne Arundel County has always been one of the ‘hotbeds’ in the lacrosse community,” Campbell said. “Playing at AACC provided me the opportunity to play with some of the best lacrosse players in the country. It also gave me the opportunity to play for Coach Beardmore, who is in several lacrosse halls of fame. One of the memories that I will always remember from that year is we played it with only 15 players.”
Campbell said that he learned from that experience the value of being prepared, training hard, being open to improvement and never giving up.
From 1986 to 1989, Campbell played club lacrosse for the Bayside Shooters and the Annapolis Lacrosse Club.
Campbell began his lacrosse coaching career at Calvert High School as an assistant in 2003 and also coached for the Prince Frederick Eagles and Dunkirk Warriors from 2008 through 2015. He has experience coaching at every level from Scoopers (4- to 6-year-old players) to young adults.
Campbell is the public safety coordinator for the college’s La Plata Campus and views his public safety role as a benefit to his new coaching position. “The idea of being on campus and available to the students is a great advantage as far as I’m concerned,” he said. “I also think my role in public safety will aid on the mindset of how I want my players to represent CSM in a positive manner.”
While acknowledging that the CSM lacrosse program requires a concentrated rebuilding effort, Campbell said he hopes to quickly raise the program to the next level. “The only goal is to field a competitive program; some of the best community college teams in the country are here in Maryland. It’s not going to happen overnight, but if we concentrate on the students that are planning to use the community college route I think we can succeed and build a competitive program where the student athlete wants to play for us because he knows that academically and athletically he will be prepared for the next level,” Campbell said.
Campbell is a retired police officer. He is married and the father of four children.
For information on Men’s Lacrosse at CSM, visit http://athletics.csmd.edu/sports/mlax/index.