Madison High School is in the market for a new head football coach again.
John Campbell, who took the Madison job last March after coaching at Division II Texas A&M-Commerce for one season, has resigned, North East ISD AD Karen Funk said Thursday night.
“He wants to look at other opportunities and we’re going to allow him to do that and relocate him so he can find other things, or perhaps more to his style,” Funk said.
Campbell declined to comment.
Campbell's successor will be the Mavericks' third head coach since local high school coaching icon Jim Streety, who headed the Madison program for 23 seasons, resigned in February 2014.
Madison made the playoffs as a fourth-place qualifier last year and lost in the first round, finishing 4-7.
“Absolutely,” said Funk when asked if she was disappointed that Campbell is moving on after only one season. “But I’m certainly not going to hold him back and not allow him to find a better future somewhere else.”
Campbell, 44, led Brandeis to the state quarterfinals three times in its first seven seasons before resigning in January 2015 and taking a job as assistant head coach at A&M-Commerce. He returned to San Antonio to succeed Mark Smith at Madison.
Smith went 4-16 in two seasons after following Streety, and was 0-10 in his second year. Madison never had recorded back-to-back losing seasons since fielding its first football team in 1978.
The Mavericks were 194-86-1 and reached the state semifinals three times under Streety, who is now the athletic director at New Braunfels ISD.
Streety finished his career with a 343-131-3 record and won more games than any other high school football coach in Greater San Antonio high school history. He was No. 4 on the state’s list for career coaching victories when he stepped down at Madison. The new artificial-turf practice field at Madison was named in Streety’s honor last August.
Madison offensive coordinator Tate DeMasco has been named the Mavericks’ acting head football coach, Funk said, adding that NEISD will likely begin advertising for the job on Friday. Volleyball coach Shannon Wolfe will be the school's acting athletic coordinator.
“Tate was a great coach at Roosevelt when he was with Neal LaHue,” Funk said, referring to the Rough Riders' former head coach. “I talked to him [Thursday] and he is eager and is ready to step into that role and make sure our kids don’t miss a beat. He’ll do a super job.”
Funk said that she was "pretty certain" DeMasco “is going to throw his name into the hat.”
“We’d certainly like to have some continuity,” Funk said. “Coach Streety was there forever and Mark Smith was there for only two years and John Campbell, we hadn’t quite hit the year mark. So we could definitely have had more consistency and continuity. But, whoever we’ll bring into that position, I’m going to look them in the eye and say, ‘You need to have Streety’s attitude that you’re a lifer.’”
A 1990 Jay graduate, Campbell was head football coach at his alma mater for three seasons (2004-06) and Katy Taylor for one (2007) before being hired to start Brandeis’ program in 2008. Campbell went 69-19 in his seven seasons with the Broncos, who won at least 10 games a year five times during his tenure.
Campbell talked about the challenge last year of coaching at a school that became synonymous with Streety long before he left coaching.
“To me, it’s an honor and a privilege to go out and practice on Streety Field every day,” Campbell said. “You’re talking about someone who was arguably the greatest high school football coach ever in the San Antonio area.”
