Lugoff-Elgin eyeing rebound from winless season under new coach

As a player, Matt Campbell knows a lot about starting from scratch.

Campbell, who played at South Carolina from 1990-93, was part of first-year expansion franchises with the Carolina Panthers and Houston Texans during his nine-year NFL career as an offensive lineman.

In many ways, it will be like starting over as Campbell begins his head coaching career at Lugoff-Elgin High. The former Gamecock tight end inherits a program that went 0-11 last season and has won four games since 2011.

“We feel like the possibility is here to get things going here,” said Campbell, who started 63 games during his NFL career. “We are trying to change the culture here and build a confident team that is going to go out and compete hard. We know it is going to be a tough transition. Any time you have a massive turnover it will be.”

Campbell spent the past five seasons as an assistant at VMI under Sparky Woods, who he played for at USC. But Woods was fired in November and that opened the door for him to pursue other opportunities.

Campbell had been thinking about getting into the high school ranks, mainly to be able to spend a little more time with his family. Two of Campbell’s oldest children will attend L-E with his oldest son a member on the football team.

“I spent a lot of time away from my kids. I wanted to get back in their lives and something simple as walking past them in the hall,” Campbell said. “Now, I have the opportunity to drive my younger kids to school. It may not matter much to most people, but to me it does.”

The 43-year-old Campbell has been on the job since early spring and put an experienced coaching staff around him. He brought over Mike Armstrong, who worked previously at Spring Valley and River Bluff, to be his strength coach. Campbell said Armstrong’s presence has been evident right away and something that might have been lacking in the past at L-E.

Campbell also hired Tim Harkness, a former head coach in college at Johnson C. Smith, to be his offensive coordinator and former Ridge View head coach Raymond Jennings as his defensive coordinator.

Campbell also has brought a more disciplined approach and is holding players accountable for being late and missing workouts.

“We just persevered through the last year and are looking forward to a brighter season,” L-E receiver Gunnar Catoe said. “We are much more disciplined than we used to be. Last year, people would show up when they wanted to. A lot of people are excited and jumped on board.”

Catoe is one of eight starters back from last season’s squad and should see more passes thrown his way with the Demons moving away from the wishbone offense.

Campbell used the spring to move players around to see how they would better be used for the season. Whether that amounts to wins remains to be seen, but Campbell thinks it will lay the foundation for the future.

“We are excited about what is to come,” Campbell said. “We are trying to build this thing from the ground up. We are trying incorporate our youth program and getting everyone going in the right direction.

“We know it is not going to happen over night, but we have taken steps to get this train moving.”

This story was originally published August 7, 2015 at 12:31 AM with the headline "Lugoff-Elgin eyeing rebound from winless season under new coach."