Amp Campbell: Sarasota High Head Football Coach

By C.S. Howard

Anthony “Amp” Campbell is the head football coach at Sarasota High School. He took over the reigns for the Sailors earlier this year after they finished 1-9 last season. Tasked with turning around a program that has a rich history in this community, Coach Campbell says he is making some critical changes and building the program around his college experiences.

“We’re changing the structure of the whole program and I’m looking at how we did things at Michigan State,” he said. “I’m getting the kids to buy-in to what we’re doing here and to trust the process. We will rebuild this program one brick at a time,”

he said. Coach has a vision to also develop these young men into champions on and off the field. “My passion is all about changing their lives.”

Coach Campbell began playing football at six years of age and graduated from Riverview High School where he was a high school All American. After graduating, he went on to play at Michigan State University where he was a college All American and an All Big Ten Corner.

He finished his college career with seven interceptions in 22 games, returning one for a touchdown for the Spartans. Coach Campbell earned a Bachelor of Science degree from Michigan State in 1999. After his playing days, he worked as an assistant coach at Alabama State, Western Michigan, Lane College in Tennessee, Ferris State in Ohio, Kent State and Urbana University before returning home to Riverview. He has been coaching for 22 years and has worked with such named coaches as George Perles , Nick Saban and Bobby Williams at Michigan State. For the past three years, he has worked as a Career Advisor at Sarasota High.

In his spare time, Coach Campbell enjoys spending time with his children and grandchildren. He has one daughter and three sons, and two grandchildren, Zane, 5 and Zade 2.