Amy Campbell Retires

TigerBlog was really mad at Amy Campbell.

Once.

It was back in 1996. There was a field hockey game at the brand-new Class of 1952 Stadium, and Amy - then a Senior Associate Athletic Director at Princeton - was standing next to the unit that controlled the scoreboard.

For some reason, she couldn't get it to work, so she called TigerBlog, who was at his desk in Jadwin Gym. When TB tried to talk her through it, she insisted that he come over to the field, so he had to walk all the way from Jadwin to '52 to start the countdown clock.

Yeah, that was the one time he was mad at Amy Campbell.

As he thinks back about it, TigerBlog is surprised he was mad at her even that one time. Amy is a very, very hard person to get mad at.

If you want to see a picture that completely defines a person perhaps more so than any picture TB has ever seen, then click HERE and you'll see everything you ever need to know about Amy Campbell. That's her in a nutshell.

In many ways, her personality reminds TigerBlog of the late (and way-too-early) Bob Callahan, the longtime Princeton men's squash coach. Nice. Genuine. Nothing phony. Always smiling. Really interested in TigerBlog Jr. and Miss TigerBlog.

TigerBlog first came up with the comparison to Bob Callahan the other day in the Chancellor Green rotunda, where the retirement reception for Amy Campbell was being held. Amy long ago left the Department of Athletics, first to be the Director of Athletics at Bryn Mawr College before returning to this campus to work in Nassau Hall.

Her final title at Princeton was something along the lines of Assistant Vice President for University Services. To be honest, TB isn't sure what she did in that role - but he's certain that whatever she did, it made for a better experience for staff, faculty and especially students.

Amy said in her short speech at the reception that it was 30 years ago that she first walked onto the campus. TigerBlog met her shortly after that, when he was still in the newspaper business. She was a vital part of the Department of Athletics then and for the first few years that TB worked here, back in the mid-1990s.

Forgetting that one time where Amy - gasp - made him walk all the way to Class of 1952 Stadium, TB learned a lot about college athletic administration from Amy, and from Inge Radice and George VanderZwaag, who were the others in the senior administration at the time.

When TB was covering games at the newspaper, he worked with someone named Harvey Yavener, who was a rarity at the time in that he valued women's athletics and felt that women's teams deserved coverage as much as men's teams. That was not a view shared by a lot of sportswriters at the time.

As a result, TigerBlog came to Princeton already embracing the concept of equity. Amy reinforced that for TB, though not in a "it's the law so this is what we do" way but instead in a way that was all about doing what was right.

Back then there was a small conference room on the Jadwin balcony, one that was big enough to hold basically the entire staff at the time. Amy ran all sorts of meetings in that little conference room, and TB developed a real admiration for her management style, one based in setting high standards, upholding a set of values and operating in a way that promoted equity across the board.

At the same time, she always kept things light, which was another important lesson for TigerBlog. Things get really, really busy around here, and you have to keep a sense of humor and a sense that everyone is in it together.

TigerBlog lost track of the timeline of when Amy left to go to Bryn Mawr or when she came back. He hasn't seen her as often through the years as he did when he worked down the hall from her obviously, but each time he's seen her there's been another hug and another smile and another nice conversation about how each one is doing.

Princeton University is an incredibly special place, for a lot of reasons, not the least of which is people like Amy Campbell, who have such a difference in the lives of so many people on this campus.

TigerBlog learned a lot from Amy at a time when he needed to learn those lessons, and he's never really thanked her for that. Or for her quarter-century of friendship.

So, now that's she retiring, he figured it was the perfect time to do that.

Thanks, Amy.

You're one of the special ones. And TB is hardly the only person who feels that way.