Mike Campbell is in his 17th and final season as Greenwood’s football coach. He was named the school’s new athletic director last week.
Rob Baker | For the Daily Journal
These seem like hectic times at Greenwood High, but you wouldn’t know it from talking to Mike Campbell.
A teacher and coach in these hallways since the fall of 1996, Campbell has seen and heard just about everything over the years, so of course he’s not going to be bothered by the school year opening with five new fall sports coaches, a new principal and a new athletic director.
That’s probably a good thing, since Campbell is the new athletic director. This is his course to navigate now.
He pushes back against the idea that Woodmen World is a giant cauldron of chaos these days, chalking it up to the chance timing of a principal and AD both departing for new jobs around the same time.
“From the outside, it looks like there’s been a huge turnover, but if you look back over the last 10 to 15 years, there hasn’t been much turnover really at all,” Campbell said. “I really don’t think it’s as unstable as it may appear. (Former principal Todd Garrison) had been here for 18 years and (previous AD Rob Irwin) had been here for seven years, so we’d had a long-term stable base.
“This is my 27th year here, so I think that in itself will lend to some stability.”
Recently, life has been anything but stable for Campbell, who was simultaneously teaching three English classes, picking up his fair share of temporary athletic director duty — and coaching Greenwood’s football team, which he will continue to do through this season before putting down the headset for good.
He’s not sure yet who his successor will be yet, but Campbell is going to walk away satisfied regardless of how his 17th and final season at the helm turns out.
“I’ve had a good career,” he said. “I’ve had a lot of fun. We’ve had a lot of great times, some success, and I think that when I look at it, I’m satisfied with what I’ve gotten to do and the experiences I’ve gotten to have. … We’re going to be on the uptick here for the next three or four years coming up, so it’ll be a good time for a new coach to take over. The peaks are coming sooner than later.”
Reaching those peaks could become more and more challenging for Greenwood across the board. With 9-12 enrollment holding steady around the 1,200 mark, the school is going to find itself as a greater and greater disadvantage against some of its peers in the Mid-State Conference. Martinsville has been shrinking and is now right next to the Woodmen as the smallest schools in the league; Perry Meridian is about twice the size of both, and Whiteland and Plainfield are both rapidly entering that same range at the top.
While Campbell sincerely believes that Greenwood can continue to be competitive, he acknowledges that it’s going to take a concerted effort to keep students from walking away from sports — or, worse yet, leaving town.
“One of the big things is, we’ve got to retain our middle school numbers from an athletic standpoint in all sports,” Campbell said. “We’re competing against other Mid-State schools who may have 700 or 800 or 900 kids in a class, and we have 300 kids in a class, we’ve got to find ways to make sure those kids don’t get discouraged — because when combine two or three classes, we’ve been competitive. But it comes down to numbers in all sports, and that’s going to be something that we’re certainly going to work on.”
A founding member of the Mid-State since 1942, the Woodmen have had to fight to remain relevant as the tide of numbers has shifted against them. They’ve still managed to do so lately — football won a Class 4A regional in 2017, boys basketball claimed a sectional title in 2020 and many of the school’s other teams continue to at least hover around the middle of the conference pack — but there has been chatter around the county that a move to another league might one day become unavoidable.
Campbell hopes to avoid it for as long as possible.
“They’re always in the back of your mind, but … we’re not actively looking or anything,” he said. “The nice thing about the Mid-State is the competition’s great, the schools are great, the kids are great, the travel’s fantastic. It’s a fantastic conference.”
No matter where the winds of change might blow Greenwood in the coming years, Campbell isn’t planning on going anywhere. With his youngest son currently in sixth grade, he’s planning to stick with his new job at least through the 2028-29 school year, and perhaps longer.
He’s spent his entire professional life in the same building, and he’d like to stay in it until he’s ready to retire.
“I love Greenwood, and I’m loyal,” Campbell said. “I’m a Woodman, that’s for sure.”
