By Dan Wiederer
Staff Writer/Fayetteville Observer
reprinted with permission

BUIES CREEK, N.C.-- For Dale Steele, last fall may have been the most unique he's had in 31 years of coaching.

Week after week Steele took his Campbell football team out to the practice field, ran drills and barked instruction. Only there was no opponent to fire up for, no game film to review, no big plays or costly mistakes from the previous Saturday to harp on.

"You have to invent so many different ways to motivate the kids and to get them to continually grasp the vision of where we want to be," Steele said. "It was a rare situation for both coaches and players to go a full year and not play a single game against anyone. Because of that there were some inevitable lulls."

So it's no wonder that with a real game finally in view — Saturday's season opener with Birmingham-Southern in Buies Creek — that the eagerness within the Camels football program has been exploding.

"The kids understand the urgency," Steele said. "You can sense their excitement to finally see how much they've progressed."

For Campbell strong safety Christian Dixon, the wait has been demanding and peculiar all at once. Of anybody on the Campbell roster, Dixon has taken a rather unique path to reach this point in his football career.

At Ayden-Grifton High School near Greenville, Dixon was a basketball standout, leading the Chargers to two conference championships during his career. Football wasn't really a focus, just something Dixon dabbled in on the side, playing only as a freshman and again as a senior.

So when he enrolled at Campbell in the summer of 2006, he had no grand visions of playing a pivotal role in the development of Camels football. Heck, at the time Dixon arrived on campus, the Campbell football program didn't yet exist.

"I had no idea where all this was headed," Dixon said. "College football was never a dream of mine. This was all last minute."

The right environment

When the Camels kick off Saturday, Dixon will be one of only two redshirt sophomores — along with defensive end Charles Fiore — in the starting lineup. He is one of the original members of this Campbell team, a quiet leader who can tell his teammates he's been here since Day One.

"This is a new era," tailback Carl Smith said. "And guys like Christian are going to be at the forefront of this new Campbell University football team. They're going to be the cornerstone."

Dixon knew Campbell might be starting a football program when he graduated from Ayden-Grifton. But as much as anything he was simply looking for a stable and encouraging college experience that would allow him to earn his college degree. He's currently majoring in athletic training.

"I knew Campbell was a good Christian school and I needed to get into an environment that was positive on me," Dixon said. "I had to get away from the environment I was in, hanging around the wrong people."

When Steele came calling, Dixon was all ears, so impressive in his first few workouts that he immediately landed a leading role for the Camels, one he hasn't relinquished since.

‘I can't wait'

What's been most amazing to Steele has been Dixon's continued development, his thirst for improvement and savvy for making plays.

"You don't go out on the field and say ‘Wow, what a play he made,'" the Camels coach said. "But you watch a 40-play practice on film and you say ‘Geez, he's there every time.' The biggest thing is his consistency and the way he's always around the ball."

Added defensive end Jason Hill, a former Douglas Byrd standout: "Christian Dixon is a head hunter. He wants action. We're always talking about wanting 11 people around the ball. Well, Christian takes that to heart. He has an eagerness to be around the play, every play."

Along with cornerbacks Brad Brower and Jared Hart, Dixon will anchor a secondary that figures to make life difficult for opposing quarterbacks. Day after day, he continues to grow and believes there's still a whole lot more improvement to make.

"I'm still a raw talent," Dixon said. "I think it's easy for me to pick up a lot of what the coaches install because I haven't been playing football that long and I don't have any old habits."

As for that hunger to get back into game action, Dixon has plenty of it, counting down the minutes until that Saturday kickoff against Birmingham-Southern.

"Everybody's hungry now. We're like wolves," Dixon said. "It's been a long, long wait. It's hard to remember the last time I played a football game. We're talking 2 years. It's crazy to think about. I'm not sure it's all going to hit me until we get to kickoff of that first game. But I know this, I can't wait."

Staff writer Dan Wiederer can be reached at wiedererd@fayobserver.com or 486-3536.