To meet the diminutive force known as John Ogden Campbell from my hometown of Harrison, you'd never imagine the congenial World War II veteran was among the most capable point guards ever to play for the Razorback basketball team.
Slender and standing barely 5-foot-6, the 92-year-old former owner of Campbell Insurance Agency fits that stereotype well (as well as a bespectacled great-grandfather with thin silver hair.) The agency will have been in business 100 years next year.
Having sold his thriving firm to sons Craig and Kirk years ago, John Ogden (I like to call him Oggie) is content nowadays to pretty much stick to a daily routine. That consists of brief morning and afternoon workouts in his upstairs exercise room, reading two newspapers, decaf coffee and an occasional visit with lifelong friends.
It's apparent from the framed photographs hung on most walls and even lying on the large dining room table of his rambling four-bedroom home just how much peace the family he and his former wife, Elizabeth, raised here bring to him.
Oggie, who remains alert and energized, is seen frequently driving his 1995 Buick LeSabre around Harrison. As in the late 1940s when one game program called him a "Bush Among Tall Trees," not much can restrain Oggie even in his 90th decade.
"I'm John Ogden Campbell," he says with a smile. "I know who I am. And I'm still a tough little dude."
Oggie says that in the past decade he's come to grips with who he truly is versus the man others have expected him to be. And he dearly enjoys the freedom that realization has brought. "I like people and love family," he said, "but I also really am basically a loner. I'm happy within myself, which is where we all find happiness."
I see the life this grandfather of 10 has lived as having been blessed in practically every way (as if since his birth in 1923) Oggie has followed a script laid out for a screenplay that could be titled The Unlikely Life and Enriching Times of John O. Campbell.
The film would begin back with a height-challenged boy from the Ozarks in his junior high years when he decided to try out for basketball. Oggie had excellent hand-eye skills, was court-smart, and quick on his feet. His skills as a starting point guard in the mid-1930s saw him named to the All-District Team. Those All-District accolades continued after assuming the same position as a Harrison High School Goblin.
The single season he played as Goblin running back was enough to make Third Team All-State and earn a scholarship offer to Southwest Missouri State. But after suffering an injury, he left to enlist as a radio operator on a C-47 in the Army Air Forces. He spent part of the war in France before being discharged in 1945.
Oggie returned home and enrolled at the University of Arkansas. "The G.I. Bill was a Godsend to get me enrolled in college," he told me.
There, while playing pickup basketball games, Oggie's athletic ability caught the attention of Jack Holt, a member of the Pi Kappa Alpha fraternity. He asked the freshman if he'd join the fraternity and play for them in intramural competition. "I told him I didn't want to join a fraternity, but I'd play. I later did pledge," he said.
When the Pikes won that championship, Oggie was encouraged to try out for the Razorbacks as a walk-on. He caught the attention of Arkansas coach Gene Lambert who in 1947 put Oggie on his practice roster. "He told me later if I could make the top eight players, he'd give me half a scholarship," said Oggie.
Following many scrimmages with six practice teams, individual statistics showed little Oggie with the most rebounds. He also would wind up making the team's greatest percentage of free throws.
After starting several Razorback games at the point, Oggie said he asked the coach one day at practice: "I believe I've made the top eight, don't you? How about a real scholarship? Coach walked right to the office and put me on full scholarship."
With Oggie leading his Hogs teammates between 1947 and 1949, they won the NCAA's Southwest tournament over Baylor, Rice and Arizona. They also traveled by train to Los Angeles to defeat Pepperdine, Stanford and other Western teams.
When those youthful glory years drew to a close (and with bachelor's and master's degrees in hand), Oggie returned to Harrison as one of the town's revered "All-Stars" and continued to built the family business. "I'm a competitor in everything I do, including business," he said. "It's in my nature." Craig and Kirk run the business now. His "very precious" daughter, Melissa, lives with her family in Alabama. Oldest son Kevin is in Florida. Half brother Gene Campbell is a retired Harrison attorney.
Even 66 years later, older folks often stop Oggie to ask if he was "that great point guard" at Arkansas during the late 1940s.
Today he spends a lot of quiet time in his comfy den alone, reflecting on a wonderful lifetime amid so many framed news clippings, proof of what a physically smaller person with larger-than-life grit and resolve can achieve. And, of course, all the pictures of his family.
------------v------------
Mike Masterson's column appears regularly in the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at mikemasterson10@hotmail.com.
Editorial on 09/13/2015