Mercury All-Area: EJ Campbell sticks with Spring-Ford and player and program transform together

EJ Campbell knew what it was like to switch schools.

The first two occasions weren’t by choice. But the idea returned to Campbell after his sophomore year and this time this choice was his.

Leave the Spring-Ford basketball program and a new head coach he didn’t initially click with, or stay, buy in and finish what he started?

Campbell chose option B, and 51 wins, a district championship appearance and two deep runs in the state tournament later, both sides could not be more fulfilled with how this partnership turned out.

It wasn’t always easy; it tends not to be with young kids, especially ones like Campbell who lived in three different states by the time he was in eighth grade due to his father’s management job at Wells Fargo. Following a nomadic childhood that bounced him from his hometown of Kansas City, Mo., through third grade, then on to Houston through seventh grade before finally landing in suburban Philadelphia, Campbell decided he had moved enough.

And now, after averaging 16 points, six assists, three rebounds and three steals per game while shooting 51 percent from the field and 87 percent from the foul line as Spring-Ford’s point guard and only senior starter, Campbell’s high school journey ends as our 2023-24 Mercury All-Area Boys’ Basketball Player of the Year.

“The offseason after my sophomore year, I wasn’t happy at Spring-Ford,” Campbell recalled three weeks after the Rams’ 23-win season ended with a 67-61 loss to Archbishop Wood in the PIAA state quarterfinals. “The way (head) Coach (Joe) Dempsey came in, we were playing a little too slow for my liking, so I was going to transfer.”

Campbell considered a move to a school in the Philadelphia Catholic League. But before that could happen, Campbell and Dempsey’s relationship transformed. Dempsey landed at Spring-Ford right before Campbell’s sophomore season began, his first as a full-time varsity starter. Dempsey won more than 200 games as head coach of La Salle College High School from 2004-18, but his system that relied heavily on ball movement did not initially mesh with Campbell’s vision for himself, and a one-year adjustment period ensued in which the sophomore averaged six points on a team that went 13-9.

“I can’t say he was a willing participant all the time,” Dempsey said. “He did resist initially, but I convinced him with the culture. The ball needs to move; you can’t pound it into the floor and do everything yourself. I constantly told him he had to trust his teammates. Now flash forward, he’s all about the team. This year as one of two seniors, his leadership brought the younger guys on. We had our battles, but at the end of the day he’s one of my all-time great success stories.”

Spring-Ford senior E.J. Campbell. (COURTESY OF BILL SNOOK)

Campbell said that he and Dempsey had a one-on-one conversation after that season, and the coach later delivered Campbell a handwritten letter telling him the player he could become.

“He did a lot for me to get me to stay,” Campbell said. “I thought, ‘I had to trust him,’ so I stayed. And then we had one of the best seasons in Spring-Ford history.”

Campbell’s junior year resulted in 28 wins that included a 20-game win streak, a Pioneer Athletic Conference championship, a five-point loss to Plymouth Whitemarsh in the District 1-6A title game and a run to the PIAA semifinals. He learned how to be more of a leader from the team’s five seniors, all while more than doubling his scoring output to 13.2 per game.

Then, those mentors graduated, leaving just Campbell and reserve Jake Dellangelo as the program’s only seniors. Suddenly much more responsibility was placed on Campbell’s 6-foot-2 shoulders, but with a full buy-in to Dempsey’s vision, he was ready for it.

“Now I knew how he coached, so it was time to work,” Campbell said. “The chemistry got better. But now, we’re not a sleeper team anymore. People know who Spring-Ford is. We were a little young, but my leadership aspect was there because we had been in all these big games.”

Now, they all knew what it took to win. As time went on, the rest of the Rams took on the personality of their floor general: tough, scrappy, resolute, meticulous and smart in everything they did. More than anything, Campbell made everybody around him better. Junior Jacob Nguyen led the Rams in scoring for the second straight season, the sharpshooter a clear beneficiary from countless open looks off selfless Campbell kickouts. Fellow junior Matt Zollers returned to the program after a one-year hiatus, and even if his reintegration to the team meant less points for Campbell, the senior embraced what was ultimately best for the collective.

“EJ made lots of sacrifices from a scoring perspective because he had to handle the ball so much and make sure the team ran properly,” Dempsey said. “That just shows the leader he’s become.”

Spring-Ford’s EJ Campbell finishes at the basket against Phoenixville’s Aidan McClintock during the PAC championship game on Feb. 14 at Perkiomen Valley. (Austin Hertzog – MediaNews Group)

Other Spring-Ford players such as junior Tommy Kelly and sophomore Oben Mokonchu made tremendous developmental strides, in large part because Campbell trusted them to make the right decisions as strongly as he trusted himself to do the same.

“As one of only two seniors, who else are they going to look upon?” Campbell said. “I’m the team leader, and I could have zero points and zero rebounds so long as we win the game. One player isn’t going to win a game. We’re all winners. I need my teammates, so I tried to bring them encouragement. They want to know you have their back because then they play better and smarter. Yeah, I yelled at them a lot, but that’s positive reinforcement for my brothers. It’s not personal…it’s just basketball.”

The Rams got back to the PAC title game this season, falling to Phoenixville on a last-second shot despite 19 points from Campbell. After a stumble in the second round of districts to Garnet Valley in which he dropped 21 more points, Campbell helped Spring-Ford prevail in a win-or-go-home playback game against Central Bucks West, mostly by feeding a red-hot Zollers in his return to the starting lineup from a broken foot. The Rams won four more in a row after that, including the first two rounds of states to make it as far as the PIAA quarterfinals for a second consecutive season.

In the end, Campbell’s sacrifices still produced the best season of his high school career while also proving the 28-win season from his junior year was no flash in the pan. The Rams didn’t make it as far as the previous year, but at the same time, there’s something intangible and immeasurable about a player like Campbell and how his mere presence and decision-making makes everyone else around him on the court better.

Dempsey texted Campbell to check in on him the morning after Spring-Ford’s season ended against Wood. The Rams had blown a late six-point lead during which Campbell had committed a costly turnover in the closing minutes of the fourth quarter. Campbell’s response wasn’t one of anger or regret, but gratitude.

“EJ told me not to worry about him and that he could not thank me enough for all I had done for him,” Dempsey said. “That was so meaningful, to see a kid mature like that before your eyes. His turnaround into the leader he became was so worthwhile. The growth he experienced makes him one of my favorite players.”

Campbell said he still thinks about that turnover every day, nearly a month after it happened. But as the wound continues to cauterize, Campbell realizes more and more how special these last two seasons were. He could have left Spring-Ford, and he speaks now like a person who is grateful not to have run away from an experience that matured and strengthened him.

“I wish I could get that last game back, but you can’t,” he said. “You’ve got to move on from it. I had a great run, and I wouldn’t choose to have done it with anybody else. When you ask any basketball player what they’ll remember (about a place), they won’t tell you the basketball. It’s the people, the coaches, the relationships I built with my brothers. Yeah, we won a lot of basketball games, but more than anything else this place became home.”

As far as what comes next, Campbell’s recruitment is still open. He has offers from Rider and East Stroudsburg, and Dempsey said there would certainly be more on the table if not for such an overactive college transfer portal. Campbell is looking for the right fit beyond just basketball, hoping to find a diverse college where he can major in business management or business information systems.

Mature enough now to know that basketball has an expiration date, Campbell is at peace with whatever happens. Just like the end of his sophomore year at Spring-Ford, it will be entirely his choice what comes next, and he’s got a pretty good track record of trusting his gut. He followed his heart before, and as a result he will depart Spring-Ford a winner, as well as someone who left the program in a better place than he found it.

“I want to be remembered here as a good person off the court and a leader on it,” Campbell said. “I want to be remembered as a good player. Maybe not the best, but a really good player at Spring-Ford who helped them win a lot of games. The last two years were the best of my life, and I have no regrets.”