Remembrances: Campbell Gym Honors Architect of York Boys Basketball Success

Post courtesy of Marty Maciaszek

(Repost/Substack)

Updated January 11, 2026 with details from Dick Campbell’s obituary

York’s Campbell Gym was once again a showplace for some of the top boys basketball teams, players and coaches in the Jack Tosh Holiday Classic during the final week of December.

The nearby South Gym is about half the size it was when Dick Campbell was directing the best boys teams in school history. Two that reached the Elite Eight in Champaign and another that had an undefeated regular season during his first stint as head coach in the 1960s. A team that reached the Sweet 16 and another that upset unbeaten Proviso East and Doc Rivers during his second stint in the late 1970s and 1980s.

In between he worked as an assistant at the University of Illinois and had a stint as Addison Trail’s head coach during his Illinois Basketball Coaches Association Hall of Fame career. Campbell passed away on December 23, 2025 in Arvada, Colorado at 97 after a short illness.

Campbell, who was selected to the WSC-100 Honor Roll celebrating the 100th anniversary of the West Suburban Conference, was highly regarded by his peers, players and members of the high school press who covered his teams. In Paddock Publications’ 1964-65 WSC preview, before Arlington moved to the Mid-Suburban League, legendary prep writer Bob Frisk wrote “he’s one of the most respected coaches in the division.”

Otho Tucker, who played at Illinois and was an all-stater at Paris, provided a glimpse into Campbell’s coaching acumen in the book A Century of Orange and Blue: Celebrating 100 Years of Fighting Illini Basketball by Loren Tate and Jared Gelfond.

“With Dick and Harv (Schmidt) preparing us for the games you could almost go stand and wait for people to make their cuts,” Tucker said. “You would know their defenses, their shifts and exactly what the opponent was going to do.”

Not bad considering Campbell’s biggest success as an athlete came on the baseball diamond. The graduate of West High School in Cleveland lettered in football, basketball and baseball, was president of the student council and had interest from his hometown Indians.

Campbell enrolled at U of I with the assistance of Hall of Fame player-manager Lou Boudreau and met his wife Nancy in Champaign. Campbell spent five years as an infielder in the Philadelphia Phillies minor league system while also working toward his degree at U of I in 1952. He played with Hall of Fame Dodgers manager Tommy Lasorda at Schenectady, N.Y., in 1948 and in 1951 at Salina, Kansas, was a teammate of Jack Trautwein, whose sons John (1988 Red Sox) and Dave pitched at Barrington and professionally.

Campbell’s 1952 season at Grand Forks, Nebraska was cut short in late July when he was called for military duty during the Korean War. But he also got an opportunity to showcase his coaching skills as a player-manager for the 1953 Fort Leonard Wood team that won the National Baseball Congress championship with future big-league players Whitey Herzog and Eddie Kasko and future big-league pitcher Pete Burnside.

His first high school basketball coaching opportunity came in 1954-55 as he went 15-11 at Noble West Richland, which closed in 2014, about 40 miles southeast of Effingham. Next stop was Charleston and back to baseball where he led a 21-5 team to the Elite Eight before returning to basketball head coaching at Newton, about 20 miles east of Effingham, and a 45-31 record in three seasons.

Like many teachers and coaches in that era, he came to the booming suburbs of Chicago. Joe Newton was building a nationally renowned cross country program at York and he convinced Campbell, his old buddy from the Army, to come to Elmhurst.

Putting York Basketball On the Map

Campbell spent two years as the frosh-soph coach before taking over the program for the 1961-62 season. York had decent success and won its fourth regional title in 1958 but its only 20-win season was in 1938 at 22-3 with a regional crown.

Everything changed quickly under Campbell with a team led by Don Anderman, Bob Rudolph and star junior guard Jim Dawson. Dawson went on to win Big Ten MVP honors at Illinois and had a brief stint in the inaugural 1967-68 season of the American Basketball Association (ABA) with the Indiana Pacers, where he was a teammate of Palatine star Ron Kozlicki.

York edged Arlington twice when they were both in the West Suburban Conference but didn’t finish atop the standings. The Dukes did beat Hinsdale 56-55 to win their first sectional title and then routed perennial power Thornton 84-63 in the East Aurora supersectional.

That put York on the Huff Gym map for the final state tournament held in the iconic home to U of I in Champaign. But the Dukes couldn’t stop future Northwestern star Jim Burns, who played briefly with the Bulls and in the ABA, in an 84-68 quarterfinal loss to McLeansboro.

A year later with Dawson back they won the WSC but had to settle for a share when they were stunned 65-63 in the regular-season finale in Elmhurst by Arlington, as Gary Brodnan scored 23 and future Kansas City Royals pitching standout Paul Splittorff hit the game-winner with 1:05 to play. Dawson, Brodnan and Kozlicki made the first Paddock Publications All-Area team.

Everything built up to the 1965-66 season which Campbell told Frisk “could be the best club I’ve had here” with Larry Saunders, Scott Fiene and 6-7 sophomore Chris Schweer, who played at Vanderbilt. They rolled through the regular season unbeaten and ranked second in the state’s final AP poll behind Benton but were upset 78-75 by Wheaton Central in the Glenbard East regional final.

A couple of early stumbles the next year included 70-64 at Arlington, now in the MSL, as Steve Allen scored 30 and future NFL player Steve Conley added 19. But they would lose only once more in the regular season with Schweer on his way to all-state honors and face Harlan from the Chicago Public League in the supersectional at East Aurora. York never led until John Doolittle hit a 10-foot baseline jumper at the horn for a 72-70 victory.

“The pressure on our kids was tremendous,” Campbell told Tribune preps writer Ralph Leo. “We were behind all along until the very last second. It takes a great deal of determination to do what our boys did today against a great Harlan team.”

They were headed back to Champaign and this time in the new 16,000-seat Assembly Hall to face central Illinois powerhouse Pekin. Campbell didn’t just watch the 1964 state tourney Pekin won but he took Hall of Fame coach Dawdy Hawkins’ man-to-man pressure defense and installed it with some tweaks used by the legendary Ralph Miller at Iowa (and later Oregon State) and John Benington at Michigan State.

Severe foul trouble to Schweer and his teammates combined with the talent of a Pekin team on its way to a second title in four years was too much to overcome in a 94-70 loss. Campbell’s record in six years at York was now a stellar 128-28. But the sports sections that weekend also included headlines regarding the uncertain futures of the coaches in the U of I basketball and football programs in the wake of the infamous “Slush Fund” scandal, which became public in December 1966, where players had been receiving illegal payments.

And in early April, Campbell would be moving on down to Champaign and moving on up in the coaching ranks as an assistant to new U of I head coach Harv Schmidt.

Champaign Dream Eventually Goes Flat

Harv Schmidt was returning home to where he starred as a player after a stint as an assistant coach at New Mexico. The athletic department needed an infusion of excitement to a half-empty Assembly Hall. Schmidt, Campbell and the Fighting Illini brought it quickly after an 11-13 finish in their first season in 1967-68.

Schmidt’s efforts to rebuild the program and interest took off as they went 19-5 and finished second in the Big Ten with a No. 20 ranking in the final AP poll. And attendance spiked to an average of 13,771, followed by the top attendance in all of college basketball in 1969-70 (14,291) and 1970-71 (16,128). The latter figure would be the highest at Assembly Hall until 2001-02.

“I remember it got somewhat intimidating to the opposition to see the response Harv got when he walked out,” Campbell said in A Century of Orange and Blue. “I remember one time Johnny Orr from Michigan decided to wait until Harv came out and tried to walk out at the same time in order to offset it so it wouldn’t affect his team. It really was incredible.

“It was weeks before the season started and kids were camped out in tents just trying to get tickets. We would be at work in the morning and they would all be looking through the windows at us as we were trying to get some work done.”

But the good times didn’t last on the court or in the stands even with future NBA veteran Nick Weatherspoon averaging 25 points a game in 1972-73. Attendance dropped to an Assembly Hall-worst average of 6,632 during a 5-18 season that would be the last for Schmidt and Campbell at U of I.

Campbell also displayed his sense of (gallows) humor when he spoke at the U of I basketball banquet, as reported in a story by Jeff Metcalfe of the Daily Illini.

“They ask me when I knew I was on the way out and I tell them it was when I got my ticket for this banquet and was asked to send in my $6.75,” Campbell joked. “Copies of this speech will be on sale in the lobby. They will be sold by my daughter, she’s the one in the tattered dress. Please buy one because I need the money.

“Actually I’m in better shape than when I came here seven years ago. I drove into Champaign in a $5,000 car and I’ll be leaving in a couple of days in a $50,000 Greyhound bus.”

His next stop was back in Chicago’s western suburbs.

Blazing a Trail Back to York

Addison Trail wasn’t even a decade old when Campbell arrived as head coach in 1974-75. He immediately put the school on the basketball map, as he did in his first season in charge at York, with the 6-8 duo of Scott Anderson, who played at Kansas and Evansville, and Norm Englehardt (Omaha).

Campbell also talked about his happiness with the move back to the preps with legendary Champaign columnist Loren Tate in December 1974. Campbell said he “couldn’t have stayed on the recruiting trail much longer” and the move was a good one for his family.

“Instead of New Orleans and Los Angeles, my southern trip is to Naperville and my northern trip is to Elk Grove Village,” Campbell said with his trademark wit. “But it’s fun to return home each night for meals and a place to sleep.

“Besides, I’m making more money than I ever did at Illinois. But I’d do it all over again. I’d just like to eliminate the last chapter. That’s the chance you take.”

Addison Trail went 24-3 with two losses in Des Plaines Valley League (DPVL) play to Norm Goodman’s Leyden powerhouse led by 7-2 future Bulls broadcaster Tom Dore (Missouri), Glen Grunwald (Indiana) and John Hendler (Wake Forest).

The Blazers also won the title in a new holiday tournament at York that’s now named after Jack Tosh. The season ended with a sectional semifinal loss to defending Class AA state champion Proviso East. After a 15-11 season Campbell was returning to a familiar place at York. AT’s only other regional title (1980) and 20-win season (22-5 in 1982-83) came under Rick Howat, who played for Campbell at U of I.

Campbell returned to a West Suburban Conference that was a basketball juggernaut in the late 1970s and into the mid-1980s before it absorbed the DPVL and split into two divisions. Especially with the addition of Proviso East after the old Suburban League broke apart.

Campbell was part of a phenomenal group of coaches that included Proviso East’s Glenn Whittenberg, Proviso West’s Lowell Lucas, Lyons’ Ron Nikcevich and Hinsdale Central’s Jodie Harrison. Future NBA All-Stars Doc Rivers at Proviso East and Jeff Hornacek at Lyons and future NFL linebacker Eric Kumerow at Oak Park-River Forest were at the top of the high talent level.

York was competing with all of them after Campbell’s first season back and his first losing season. In 1978-79 the Dukes were 20-7 with 3 losses by a combined total of 10 points to Proviso East and Rivers. A year later, with 6-7 Northwestern-bound all-state senior Paul Schultz, they lost a 9-point lead in the final 3:07 and fell 63-60 in Maywood.

That set up a mid-February rematch in Elmhurst and what could be considered the most-anticipated boys basketball game in school history. There was a rare pre-sale of tickets and the old gym, which in those days had balcony seating and held 3,200, was nearly full a half-hour before the sophomore game to see the 22-0 Pirates, who were regarded as one of the top teams in the country.

“We were pretty formidable too and didn’t necessarily have to back off from anybody,” Campbell told me from his retirement home of Fort Collins, Colorado in February 2005 for a Daily Herald story on No. 1 upsets.

Schultz outscored Rivers 32-19. York went ahead for good late in the first half and built a 15-point lead late in the third quarter and fans stormed the court as it held off the feared Pirates’ press for a 72-70 victory.

“They were always such a complete basketball team and they could get after you in so many ways,” Campbell said of his first win over Proviso East in nine tries. “They were strong defensively in the half-court and full-court. They had so many dimensions and it was always difficult to be able to contain them.

“Their press was always devastating. You always knew it was like a boxer with a knockout punch. It was there somewhere and you had to sustain your poise throughout the game because they had the ability to score quickly.”

But the Dukes always seemed to be blocked by the two Provisos in the regional every years. Until 1982, when they overcame some injuries, led by future pro pitcher Kurt Stange and Tom Newton, the son of legendary cross country coach Joe Newton, to give Campbell one last fun run with a 22-8 team. Standout cross country runner Doug Schroer ran the point and shooting guard Tim Lavin would go on to win a state title and 400-plus games as a head coach at Champaign Centennial.

He once again showed his ability to adjust to his personnel, playing primarily zone with a little man-to-man defensively because of the team’s size and turning that strength on the boards into more of a running attack.

They upset WSC champion East 66-51 in the Willowbrook regional final to return home to full houses for the sectional as they stunned 26-1 De La Salle and avenged a holiday tourney loss to Gordon Tech for their third trip to the Sweet 16 under Campbell. Another full house waited at Hinsdale Central for a supersectional matchup with Mendel and Iowa-bound standout swingman Andre Banks.

York’s dreams of another trip to Champaign were alive when it trailed 40-39. But Banks, with then-Iowa coach and Hall of Famer Lute Olson in attendance, scored 12 of his 24 points in the fourth quarter and Mendel won 59-47. Campbell ended up doing color commentary when Mendel’s Mike Hampton hit the last-second 25-footer that ended Quincy’s 64-game winning streak in the semifinals.

Campbell would be named the 1981-82 Press Publications Coach of the Year and shared his thoughts with a kid reporter from the local Elmhurst Press.

“I’m appreciative of the choice and it is a high honor,” he said. “I’d really like to thank the players for making me look good, because they are the ones who made it happen.

“Our finish was beyond my wildest expectations. We had beaten and stayed close with good teams and I felt we were a good team, but we have been unable to beat Proviso East, Leyden, Gordon Tech and Oak Park in regular-season play.

“That three-game stretch was really a thrill, especially getting to the Sweet 16. I’ve had teams that have gotten farther in the tournament and I couldn’t say if this was the best team I’ve ever had, but it was as satisfying a season as I’ve ever had.”

Campbell would coach three more seasons before retiring with records of 260-134 at York and 359-190 overall in high school. But his legacy lives on, especially every year in late December when some of the state’s best basketball is played in Campbell Gym.

Campbell’s wife of 65 years, Nancy, was also a teacher at York and passed away in December 2017. They moved to Fort Collins, Colorado in 1995 to be closer to their daughter Betsy. They also had another daughter Kristie and a son Kenneth Hudson Campbell, who became a comedian, actor and filmmaker who played Santa Claus in the movie “Home Alone.” They also had 9 grandchildren and 9 great-grandchildren.

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