When the basketball program was implemented at then Youngstown College in time for the 1927-28 campaign, it gave new hope that shortly more intercollegiate sports for students would be started.
The football program started in 1938 and for five seasons, the late Dwight "Dike" Beede had the program on a roll, posting a 28-14-2 mark including a 20-4-2 ledger the last three years before the outbreak of World War II. The program was discontinued from 1943 to 1945 due to the war. When the 1946 football campaign got the notice to resume, there were many happy collegians just starting school and returning from the armed services ready to put back on the maroon and gold and fight on the gridiron for their hometown University.
One player ready to begin his collegiate grid career was Tom Campana, a Hubbard High School graduate who was eager to join brother Al, who was Currently on the Penguin squad. With Al inducted into the YSU Athletics Hall of Fame in 1986, the Campanas are the second brother act to be elected to YSU's honor scroll (the first set of brothers to be inducted into the hall of fame were the Ferranti's with Jim going in 1989 and brother Bob a member of the class of 1990.)
A stellar scholastic athlete, Campana picked up in college right where he left off in high school. While records remain incomplete around the war time years, his two touchdown runs against Geneva College (a 64-yarder in the second quarter and a 10-yard scamper in the third quarter) in his very first collegiate game sparked the Penguins to a 20-6 victory, while his second game featured a 65-yard pass from Mike Durina which was lateraled from Pete Lanzi as the Penguins toppled St. Bonaventure, 20-14.
Ironically, it was in the fifth game that season that he and this year's contributor into the YSU Hall of Fame, Jack Cramb, teamed up on a 36-yard pass play in the fourth quarter to secure a 20-6 victory for Youngstown over Lebanon Valley.
To start out the 1948 campaign, his junior season, he raced 89 yards with a kick-off in the third quarter to help the Penguins to a 33-21 victory over Canisius College.
During his four-year stay on the Penguin campus, he helped the Penguins to a 23-9-3 overall mark, helping to put the football program back on the map after the war years.
He earned his BS in Education degree in1950, and entered the teaching and coaching profession where he made a name for himself beyond his playing days. He coached for 36 years on the scholastic lever (most notable at Kent Roosevelt), posting a 158-57 overall mark including six league championships. He had the privilege of coaching five collegiate All-Americans including Mike Adamle (Northwestern University), Tom DeLeone (Ohio state), Steve Drongowski (Wittenberg), Steve Myers (Ohio State) and Joe Paoloni (Wittenberg). He coached eight players that later went on to play in the National Football League. They were: Mike Adamle, Larry Bowie, Greg Boykin, Tom Campana (his son), Tom DeLeone, Errol Prisby, Gary Roberts, and Stan White.
Perhaps his greatest satisfaction came in coaching his four sons, all of whom went on to play collegiate football including son mark who played for the 1978 Division II National Champion Eastern Illinois University Panthers. The Panthers eliminated the Penguins from the semi-final round with a 26-22 victory-a game in which Mark returned a Panther kick-off 90 yards in the first quarter of play.
A member of Hubbard High School and the Portage County Hall of Fame, he is also enshrined in the Ohio High School Football Coaches' and Ohio High School Athletic Director's Halls of Fame as well.
He and his wife, the former Lois Talbott have five children, Tom, Tim, Laurie, Mark and Matt.
