Camels savor that winning feeling

Luke Decock, Staff Writer

News & Observer

BUIES CREEK - Everything that happens to Campbell's football team this fall is a first anyway, but when Milton Brown walked into his 9 a.m. Monday business law class on Sept. 29, he was Campbell's first football star.

Brown's game-winning touchdown on an interception return -- his second TD and third interception of the game -- sealed a 36-27 win over Carthage (Wis.) College two days earlier, Campbell's first football win in 58 years.

Brown walked into class a hero, suddenly the star of a team that barely existed a year earlier. His whole day went like that.

"Even my piano teacher said, 'When I first met you, I knew you played football, but I didn't know you were a superstar like that,' " Brown said.

A week later, the Camels were spanked 42-0 at Dayton, a reality check if there ever was one, but the swing in emotions didn't seem to affect the Campbell players, who regarded it with a little more nonchalance than most of their college football peers.

They're focused on a bigger goal. None of them came to Campbell to win right away. That they did, after eight weeks of practice, was a huge bonus that made all the "we're part of something bigger" talk more than just talk.

"It was great to have that win for Campbell," said fullback Jordan Cramer, who played at Wake Forest-Rolesville. "We're adding brick by brick to the program, and that was one of the biggest bricks we put down."

The football team talks a lot about building, and that's certainly the case for Campbell athletics in general. The football stadium is more than half- finished, with a shiny new fieldhouse for the team and bleachers around half of the field.

On the other side of campus, a new basketball arena -- more than three times the size of the old one, which was the second-smallest in Division I with 947 seats -- is now open for business.
Campbell has always punched above its weight athletically, from the basketball team to the golf-management program, and the football team will have to meet the same high standards, as a non-scholarship program with modest means. So far, the Camels are 1-5. Saturday's home game against Butler will be the first in Buies Creek since the win over Carthage.

"There's always the frustration of losing, but you can't focus on the losses too much," said Paul Constantine, a wide receiver who played at Enloe last year. "I hate when everybody says we're a new team. That's not a fall-back. That can't be our excuse."

For players like Andy Johnson, an offensive lineman from Smithfield, the win was a long time coming. He was a member of Campbell's first recruiting class last fall, a group that practiced every week as if a game was coming while the first game was still a year away.

With the football facilities still being built, they changed in an old laundry room. Now, they dress in a state-of-the-art locker room and practice on a top-of-the-line artificial turf field. A win was the only thing missing.

"Everything we've done here has been a first," Campbell coach Dale Steele said. "When you get an opportunity to get that first win, that's a little bigger first than the first scrimmage or the first practice or any of those things."

When the team got back to campus after an 11-hour journey from Wisconsin -- beginning with a 2:30 a.m. wake-up call, four hours after the game ended -- Brown wasn't the only player singled out in class. The university president showed up for the football team's breakfast meeting.

"People knew we were football players, but it was a whole different level once we finally won a game," Johnson said. "People recognize you, just walking down the hallway, and stop and talk to you."

At some levels of football, wins are taken for granted or treated like a birthright. For Campbell, one win meant everything.