East Bladen mourns the loss of beloved fan Scoop Campbell

ELIZABETHTOWN — Scoop Campbell, the elderly gentleman who had one spot at the end of the East Bladen girls basketball team bench and another in their heart, has died.

Everett W. Campbell Jr. was 94.

Head coach Patty Evers shared the news Saturday, saying he had died on Friday evening near his Dunkirk, Indiana, home in the Indiana University Ball Memorial Hospital in Muncie, Indiana, surrounded by family. A veteran of World War II who served in the Navy and Marines during his career, he had retired from Kerr Glass in Dunkirk in 1988.

”It’s hard,” Evers said Saturday afternoon. “In the early years, when he first started on the bench, he came to practice twice a week if not three times. He evaluated talent. He could tell, he knew. He was really good at evaluating talent.”

College players from East Bladen were not surprised when Campbell showed up at their games, be it UNC Pembroke, UNC Wilmington or other colleges and universities.

“He loved all of them,” Evers said. “He followed every single one of them, every college player I had.

“He’s a great guy.”

Campbell became a fixture with the Lady Eagles when he did the snowbird trips during the winter, leaving the Hoosier State to come South. He first watched his granddaughter, McKenzie Taylor, play for Evers but remained one of the team’s most loyal and supportive fans.

Assistant coach Alan West explained in a 2019 interview that the older he got, the less he could easily move around. That’s when he got a seat on the bench.

“They always have the best defense around,” Campbell said in 2019 as Evers was in pursuit of career win No. 500.

His basketball mind was a blessing to be near, Evers said. She was especially grateful when the N.C. High School Athletic Association altered the coaching box rules, so she could be at either end of the bench during games.

Campbell in 2008 was enshrined to the Indiana High School Basketball Hall of Fame, having met the minimum requirements that are not limited to but do include calling games for at least 25 years, having been retired from it for 10, and having officiated at least one state tournament final or final four. Campbell called the Indiana High School Athletic Association finals — teams would play each year in Butler Fieldhouse in afternoon semifinals and then the championship the same night — in 1962 (semifinals), 1963 (finals) and 1964 (semifinals).

It was in the 1963 game that Muncie Central — infamous as the big-city school that lost to tiny Milan in 1953-54, which the movie “Hoosiers” is based upon — finally broke through a decade after the biggest high school basketball upset in arguably the biggest high school basketball state. Muncie had also lost the final in 1960.

Indiana did not stage its basketball championships in classifications based on size until the 1996-97 season.

Campbell was also a member of the Delaware County Athletic Hall of Fame, having been inducted in 1988.

Strong in his faith and service to country and the communities where he lived, Campbell was a member of Mt. Tabor United Methodist Church in Dunkirk; Trinity United Methodist Church in Elizabethtown; the American Legion; Dunkirk Elks Lodge; and the Dunkirk Masonic Lodge. According to his obituary, in lieu of flowers the family requests donations be made to Trinity United Methodist Church or the East Bladen girls’ basketball program.

The death is the second in less than two months for the East Bladen athletics family. Russell Priest, the longtime baseball coach, died July 30. The baseball field is named in his honor, and was the site of his funeral.

“It’s not easy,” Evers said. “I’m still mourning the loss of Coach Priest. I walk in my office and think about him every single day.”

Funeral arrangements are being handled in Indiana and will include a private service for family due to COVID-19.