UW’s Campbell Shows Plenty Of Heart

Shortly after Chris Campbell came out of routine arthroscopic surgery last May, the doctor who presided in the operating room came back with a mixed report:

The knee is fine but let’s talk about your heart.

At one point during the surgery, the University of Washington defensive lineman’s heartbeat accelerated.

A monitor was placed on Campbell’s heart and a short time later, while he was at home watching television, his heart rate went into overdrive again to a scary 210.

The senior defensive end said he’d never been concerned about the racing heart, that he figured it was adrenalin kicking in.

A surgical procedure has since corrected the situation, to the relief of Randy Hart, Washington’s defensive coordinator and line coach. Playing on the defensive front opposite All-American Jason Chorak, Campbell can start breaking hearts of the fans of Husky opponents.

Campbell (6-1, 250) has the speed that coach Jim Lambright feels is so critical on the outside defensive line.

‘That’s one of the reasons looking at him out of high school you liked him because you saw the multi-sport athlete and a good running athlete,” Lambright said.

“The way it worked out is here’s a fine defensive end who gives us real balance on that defense.”

Campbell was stuck behind all-star linebacker Ink Aleaga going into the 1996 season so he asked for the move to defensive end.

“I was the one who asked for it,” Campbell said. “I knew I wasn’t going to beat Ink out and I wanted to get on the field rather than sit.”

It took some adjusting, being required to react immediately when confronted by a 300-pound tackle.

Because of Campbell’s experience at linebacker, Hart thinks he “understands the whole defense probably as good as anybody out there.”

In the opener against BYU, Campbell had two sacks and two QB hurries and just missed a third sack.

Memo: And when the defense struggled early against BYU, Campbell was the cool voice of reason that helped settle things down, then forced BYU to punt six straight possessions.

“Chris is one of those guys who’s not going to run around like a chicken with his head cut off,” Hart said. “He’s going to go out and calm things down and play good football.”