Campbell named new G-K athletic director

Twenty-eight years ago, Dirk Campbell played basketball for sophomore coach Jim Hughes at Genoa-Kingston.

On Wednesday, Campbell will take over the athletic director’s office as G-K from Hughes.
Campbell spent the past 19 years teaching in Hampshire.

“I thought I was going to retire from Hampshire,” Campbell said. “This was probably the only job I would have left Hampshire for.”

One of the draws of the new position for Campbell, an 1983 G-K grad and lifetime Genoa resident, was being at the school his oldest daughter, Kelsie, attends. Kelsie is a junior who plays golf, basketball and softball at the school. Next year, youngest daughter Sydney will join them at the school.

“It will be great to see Kelsie everyday,” said Campbell, who coached baseball and basketball at Hampshire in the past. “I see her everyday now, but this will be different.”

Campbell coached freshman and then sophomore softball the past two years at G-K. And, when he heard Hughes would be retiring, the first thing he did was ask Hughes his advice on whether he should apply for the job.

Hughes, as he has for his students for so long, gave a glowing endorsement.

“We’re going to work together a lot,” Campbell said of Hughes, who will continue at the school as an assistant football coach.

“There will be a nice transfer of ideas with Jim being here,” G-K superintendent Scott Wakely said. “They know each other well.”

Another of Campbell’s former coaches, Steve Stirlen, is the girls golf coach at G-K. Those close ties are what made the move natural for both Campbell and the G-K school district, which approved the hire at last week’s school board meeting.

“He has a lot of experience with the Genoa-Kingston community. We’ve seen him coach before, been involved with the athletic program,” Wakely said. “We want to continue traditions we had but bring in fresh ideas with bringing the programs forward.”

One of Campbell’s main goals is to help more G-K students move on to play college athletics, like he did. After playing golf, basketball and baseball at G-K, Campbell played college baseball at St. Xavier in Chicago.

“We have a lot of really good athletes around here that could benefit from the opportunity to continue to play,” Campbell said.