Dual domination

Tevaughn Campbell excels on the track and football field

Ed Kapp
Sports Writer

According to Tevaughn Campbell, a defensive back for the University of Regina Rams, there’s only one thing he doesn’t enjoy about the game of football.

“I don’t like conditioning,” Campbell, 18, said with a laugh. “Like, I hate it.”

Given Campbell’s apparent disdain for conditioning, one might wonder why the Scarborough product, despite having several hours of training a week already devoted to football, recently joined the U of R Cougars track and field squad.

For Campbell, though, there was good reason behind his decision.

“Basically, after the football season was done, there was a lot of sitting around, eating, gaining weight, and getting slow,” recounted Campbell, who participated in both football and track and field during his time in high school.

“I wanted to get prepared for next year, so I asked the track coach, Bruce McCannell, if I could join the team to train – basically to get faster…I was hoping to really get my 40 time up and, basically, get a good burst for football.”

According to McCannel, there was little hesitation on his part to make Campbell a part of his squad.

“He said he wanted to give it a try again, because he had done it in high school,” McCannel recounted in a recent interview with the Leader-Post. “I looked at his performances in Ontario and he had run fast enough to be on our team, so I didn’t have any qualms about inviting him to come out for our practices.”

So far, Campbell has proven to be a quick study on the track, winning the 60-metre event in the Cougars’ intrasquad meet in late November and at the Friendship Games in early December.

Perhaps more important than his early success in track and field, Campbell, who is to play his second campaign with the Rams next season, emphasized he believes his transition from the field to the track has already paid dividends.

“It’s helped me a lot,” Campbell insisted. “There are some things that I haven’t even thought of doing that they do on the track team. It’s really tough work, so it gets you in great shape really quickly.”

Despite the fact that Campbell dislikes conditioning, he emphasized that he is more than willing to do almost anything to succeed in the world of football, as the prospect of one day collecting cheques as a football player would not only signal a personal dream come true, but also a better life for his family in Ontario.

“It would mean a lot,” noted Campbell, who hopes to someday open his own business. “I would be able to get my family a bigger house and get them out of where they’re at now.

“It would mean a lot to me.”