After 32 years at the helm of the Western Connecticut State University men’s basketball program, Bob Campbell will retire on October 31. Jason Harlow, a former player and Assistant Coach for Campbell will take the reins as an Interim Head Coach on November 1.
Campbell leaves the Colonials as the school’s longest tenured Head Coach.
He has the highest winning percentage of any coach in the program’s 70-year history with an overall record of 589 wins and 278 losses, a .679 winning percentage.
His other accomplishments with the Colonials include:
Twelve seasons with 20 or more wins, including seven consecutive from 1988 to 1995; 12 invitations to the NCAA tournament, advancing to at least the second round eight times, the most recent being in 2011-12; Five Little East Conference championships; A 28-2 overall record and a #2 National ranking in a 1989-90 season that ended in an OT loss in the Elite Eight of the NCAA tournament; And a school-record 20 straight wins during the 1985-86 season.
During the 1989-90 season, the Colonials opened with 19 straight victories, and after an 80-63 loss to Hartwick College, regained their composure and won nine of their last 10 games. Western’s season-ending win streak came to a close in the finals of the Atlantic/Middle Atlantic Sectionals, (The Elite Eight) with a 107-104 overtime loss to host Washington College of Maryland.
A Danbury native, Campbell graduated from the University of Connecticut, where he worked with coaching legends Jim Valvano, Dom Perno and United States Olympic Coach Dee Rowe. Campbell received his master’s degree from Columbia University.
Following graduation from the UConn, Campbell taught in the Danbury school system and broke into coaching at Danbury High School.
Campbell came to Western in 1980-81 as a part-time coach, assisting three different head coaches, before taking over WCSU’s program in 1984.
In addition to his responsibilities at Western, Campbell has coached at the World Student-Athlete Games held in Newport, RI (1994), and was selected the basketball coordinator for the 1990 Nutmeg Games, Connecticut’s Olympics.
Jason Harlow returned to his alma mater in 2013 to be an Assistant Coach for Head Coach Bob Campbell. He earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Communication in 2001.
Prior to returning to Western he was an assistant for the Trinity College basketball program in 2012-13 after several years of experience coaching at the high school level.
After six years as an assistant at Wamogo High School in Litchfield, Conn., Harlow coached at Thomaston High School for two seasons and most recently scholastically at Litchfield High School from 2003 to 2012.
He guided the Litchfield squad to three league titles and two league-tournament championships, and was selected to coach the 2008 Connecticut Senior All-Star Game.
http://www.wcsuathletics.com/sports/mbkb/2016-17/releases/20160920gl7cet
