Bio

Steven Campbell Jr. became Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College athletic director in 2017.

He was no stranger to the Perkinston Campus. His father, Steve Campbell, was the head coach of the Bulldogs football team, and they lived here for eight years, giving him deep roots to lead the athletic department.

Campbell, a graduate of Stone High who was selected for Mississippi’s Bernard Blackwell All-Star Game, played tight end, center and long snapper during his playing career at Gulf Coast. The Bulldogs won two Mississippi Bowls and the 2010 MACJC championship.

He earned NJCAA All-Academic honors at MGCCC, then went on to earn his bachelor’s degree in economics at Ole Miss. Campbell joined his father’s coaching staff at the University of Central Arkansas, where he was quality control assistant for defense/inside linebackers. He also completed his master’s in business administration while there.

Campbell joined the coaching staff at Virginia Tech in 2016, where he was the special teams quality control assistant. The Hokies went 10-4, winning the ACC Coastal Division and the Belk Bowl.

Gulf Coast won the national title in 2018 when the Bulldogs golf team won the NJCAA Division II Championship in Foley, Ala, the first since 2007, when the Bulldogs captured the co-national championship in football with Campbell’s father at the helm. The MGCCC football team followed up with another national title in 2019 after a stellar defensive performance in Pittsburg, Kansas, by defeating Lackawanna. In 2020, Campbell was named the inaugural NJCAA Athletic Director of the Year.

The Bulldogs have also succeeded in the classroom under Campbell’s leadership. Gulf Coast won the Halbrook Award for having the highest graduation and completion rate in the MACCC in 2020-21, when 100 percent of its student-athletes achieved those goals. In 2020-21 the Bulldogs produced the most NJCAA All-Academic and MACCC All-Academic award winners in the MACCC conference for the second year in a row with 78 NJCAA All-Academic and 115 MACCC All-Academic selections. The Bulldogs also had eight NJCAA Academic Team Honors in 2020-21 with the men’s soccer and baseball teams winning MACCC All-Academic Team of the year.