By Stan Cole '87
 
BUIES CREEK, N.C. – Imagine a crisp autumn weekend afternoon, a grandstand packed with students, fans, family and alumni, cheerleaders and mascot along the sideline exhorting the crowd in full-throated support of the 11 players on the field.
 
At halftime on the first Saturday in October, the annual homecoming queen is crowned.
 
Throughout the Southeastern United States, that scene is played out in numerous college football stadiums.
 
From 1963 through 1985 – including the first nine years of the program's Division I era – that scenario was enacted in Buies Creek at Taylor Field – the home for Campbell University's men's soccer team.
 
Yes, the same Taylor Field (now Jim Perry Stadium) that has been home to Campbell's baseball team since the 1940s, was the site of Campbell's annual homecoming game – played before a futbol, rather than a football, crowd.
 
The last Homecoming match played at Taylor Field was on Oct. 5, 1985, and the Camels defeated Mercer 5-1.  Suzy Ensley was crowned "Harvest Queen" – the title of Campbell's homecoming queen during the time.
 
Like many of you, I was there.
 
Opening night
Jim Cole* coached the first soccer match he ever saw in a driving rainstorm – on Sept. 28, 1963 – when then Campbell College hosted NC State in the program's inaugural contest at Taylor Field.  Cole would go on to lead the Camels to three NAIA national tournament berths and 138 victories over 13 seasons.
 
A Buies Creek High School senior, Barry Howard, was also there, standing along the touch line, with water pouring over his shoes while wearing a brand new raincoat that did little to impede the elements.  Barry saw the lights illuminate his back yard of the house where he lived next door to Buies Creek First Baptist Church, where his father served as pastor, and walked a few hundred feet to witness his first soccer game.
 
One year later, Barry joined the Campbell soccer team.  A year after that, he was named to the All-South region team.  In the 1970s, Barry coached Buies Creek High School and later Campbell's soccer team on that same Taylor Field.
 
Both Cole and Howard were later inducted into the Campbell Athletics and North Carolina Soccer halls of fame.
 
When then Athletics Director Fred McCall, who also served as Campbell's men's basketball coach, informed Cole that he would coach Campbell's first soccer team in the fall of 1963, Cole told him that he knew nothing about the game.
 
McCall's response: "Get a book."
 
Cole began recruiting players from the soccer talent-rich Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states.  Those players, like Dave Amsler and Richard Murphy not only led the Camels to the NAIA national tournament for the first time in just the program's seventh year (1969) but also helped spread interest in the game to an area that knew relatively little about the sport.
 
* no relation to the author
 
The place
By the 1970s, the Johnson Natatorium stood beyond the left center field fence at Taylor Field, while a stand of long leaf pine trees towered over the right center field barrier.  The left and right field fences eventually met at a right angle in center field – 420 feet from home plate on the baseball diamond.
 
One goal line on the soccer field stood along the right field line, while the Natatorium served as the backdrop for the opposite end of the stadium.
 
Bleachers were situated under the pine trees.  During soccer season, a section of the chain link fence was rolled back to accommodate the spectators in the main bleachers as well as smaller stands.
 
Across the width of the field, a table, which provided space for a scoreboard operator, public address announcer and statistician, was placed between the team benches.  One bench area was located between first and second base and the other extended into short left-center field.
 
A wide swath of the dirt infield not only sat under the visitor's bench but also came into play along the right flank as one team attacked the end closest to the main part of campus.
 
Light poles – in play in right field during baseball season – were wrapped in padding and stood just a few paces off the opposite sideline.
 
Those lights – plus the talent on the field – helped attract boisterous crowds, especially for midweek games.
 
"There was something about playing under the lights," said Badie Clark, who joined the Camels as a freshman in 1983 after earning high school All-America honors at Greenfield Academy in Wilson, N.C.  "That was one of the things I really loved about Taylor Field, because where they had the bleachers, the student section, cheerleaders, really a dynamic atmosphere, and usually, pretty, rowdy crowds.  I can take my mind right back to it – just how exciting it was to play in that atmosphere."
 
Marty Scarborough recalls being on the Buies Creek school field during physical education classes and hearing the thundering sound of a soccer ball caroming off the crossbar when star forward Tony Lotierzo unleashed a powerful shot in the mid-1970s.
 
Later, the middle of three Scarborough brothers who starred for the Camels wrote poems about his collegiate experience, including the run-up to a highly-anticipated contest against regional rival NC State.
 
More than 40 years later, Marty clearly remembers the atmosphere when the Camels stepped out of their dressing room in the basement of Carter Gym, then walked across Main Street on the evening of Sept. 28, 1983, to face the Wolfpack in a matchup of two regionally-ranked programs.
 
"That night before we played State, when we were walking out all you could hear was the crowd yelling 'Sack the Pack!' from a pep rally.  For us to get onto the field, they had to separate the crowd standing behind one goal," said Scarborough.
 
Home field advantage
After winning 147 games in 14 years as a member of the NAIA, the Camels made the move to NCAA Division I in the fall of 1977 and played seven years without a conference affiliation.
 
Campbell played its first nine D1 soccer campaigns at Taylor Field before moving to the site where the Campbell Soccer Stadium now stands within the Eakes Athletic Complex on the north edge of campus.
 
Over those nine seasons, the Camels won two-thirds of their home matches (43-20-6) and enjoyed a good measure of success against their most notable opponents: Duke, NC State and North Carolina. Five of 11 matches between the Camels and the three ACC rivals at Taylor Field between 1977 and 1985 extended into overtime and Campbell posted a 3-6-2 record overall against the Blue Devils, Wolfpack and Tar Heels in Buies Creek during the stretch.
 
However, the program took off under the guidance of Tim Morse, who was named head coach in 1981.  Morse's squad was unbeaten at home in '81 (7-0-1) and finished 28-7-4 (.769) under his direction at Taylor Field over five seasons.  In addition to the win over NC State in '83, the Camels defeated UNC 3-0 in '81 at Buies Creek and played to a memorable 3-3 draw against the Tar Heels on Oct. 30, 1985, in what would be the final soccer match contested on the site.
 
Familiar territory, even before college
From the late '60s through the early '80s, Campbell hosted an annual high school soccer tournament – not only to grow the game in the area but also with recruiting in mind.
 
Marty Scarborough – along with this brothers Rusty and Scott – played in the event for the host Buies Creek and later Harnett Central high school teams.  Badie Clark and a number of other future Campbell players also competed in the tournament, which drew programs from Eastern and Central North Carolina.
 
Clark played his first high school game as an eighth grader in the Campbell Invitational.  His Greenfield Academy team won the title a year later.
 
"It was mystical; it was unbelievable," said Clark of the atmosphere at Taylor Field.  "I remember going to watch Tony Ferrell play.  They were so good, we drove up from Wilson to watch them under the lights."
 
When the time came for Clark to decide on where he would study and compete in college, the familiarity of Buies Creek played a factor, but not nearly as much as the Campbell coaching staff.
 
"The reason I went to Campbell was Tim Morse. I connected with him," said Clark, who became a starting back for the Camels from 1983-87 and is now a pediatrician as well as a visiting professor at Campbell University's Medical School.  "Anson Dorrance was coaching the men at UNC. He recruited us and thought he had both David Doyle and me ready to go to UNC, but I just connected with Tim.  I took an official visit (to Campbell) and it felt right."
 
Clark's high school coach, Lee Horton, joined the Camel staff at the same time his star player enrolled, and served as Morse's goalkeeper coach.  Clark was also familiar with Camel assistant coach Barry Howard, who was also one of the coaches for regional all-star team tryouts that we annually held in Buies Creek.
 
Playing on a converted baseball field was nothing new to Clark.  During his time at Greenfield, his team played their home games at historic Fleming Stadium, home of the Wilson Tobs of the Coastal Plain and later Carolina League.  From 1978-82 in his soccer cleats, Clark trod the same grass and dirt that future Hall of Fame infielder Rod Carew did in spikes as a minor league second baseman in 1966.
 
 Marty Scarborough recalls facing Greenfield as well as Ravenscroft and Fayetteville Academy during his high school career, first at Buies Creek, then at Harnett Central, where in 1979 he was a member of the second graduating class.
 
While at Buies Creek, Scarborough and his teammates played their home games at Taylor Field, or at what is now known as Saylor Park on Campbell's campus.  As soccer grew on the high school level in the coastal plain region, Scarborough along with teammates Tony Johnson, Mark Stewart and others, would accompany Coach Howard on trips to smaller area high schools where they would show films of English professional soccer teams and perform drills to introduce the game throughout the county and region.
 
Scarborough remembers the dirt infield being a distinct home field advantage, especially during or immediately after heavy rain when the ball would not easily roll in muddy conditions.
 
Sept. 28, 1983
No attendance was noted in the official scorebook, while the weather was listed as cool and windy when Campbell hosted NC State in the team's 10th match of the 1983 season.  The Wolfpack entered with a 7-1 record and ranked fifth in the South Region, while the Camels stood 6-1-2 with a No. 9 regional ranking.
 
"I did like to write poems back in those days and believe that I wrote the poem about the NC State game a night or two in advance of the game," said Scarborough, who still makes Harnett County home with his wife Ellen, who he met at Campbell.  "I never really shared those poems with the whole team but somehow that one got out and a copy of it made its way to the locker room."
 
Marty did not remember who read the poem in the locker room before the team walked across the street and through the parking lot to Taylor Field, however he can still recite the 10 lines by heart.
 
Beat The Pack
To beat the Pack
we must attack
and stick it to them hard
not too much, but just enough
avoiding the dreaded card
in the dark of the night
when the time is right
a glitter of light you'll see
a shot will sail, what a lovely nail
in the back of the net it will be.
-- Marty Scarborough (1983)
 
Scarborough was a fifth-year senior and joined on the back line that night by two freshmen – Clark and Quintin MacDonald – and sophomore Peter McCormick.
 
"I was right back that night and Badie was left back, McCormick was center back," Scarborough recalled.  "It wasn't 10 minutes into the game; I lost the ball they scored."
 
Actually, it was the first minute of the game when NC State freshman Sadri Gjonbalaj scored and put the Wolfpack in front after just 17 seconds had elapsed.
 
Mike Little drew the Camels level 21 minutes later, but Gjonbalaj netted his second of the night and the visitors led 2-1 after 27 minutes.  Just 1:02 later, Little again equalized and the score stood 2-2.  Not even five more minutes elapsed before John Reed connected on a long distance shot that beat Wolfpack keeper Chris Hutson for what proved to be the game-winning goal.
 
Joe Moreschi made five of his 12 saves in the second half and the hosts won 3-2, despite being outshot by a 27-12 margin.
 
I was not at that game during the fall of my freshman year but did not miss many over the next three seasons.  Ward Flintom, who lived across the hall from me in Burkot Dorm, was not yet a member of the team, but earned a roster spot in pre-season tryouts as a sophomore.
 
Homecoming 1984
Campbell lost only once – a 6-0 setback in Raleigh at No. 15 NC State – over the first eight matches of the 1984 campaign and hosted NAIA national power Catawba in the annual homecoming game on the first Saturday of October.
 
Flintom made his collegiate debut off the bench in Raleigh and also came on as a substitute in a midweek draw at East Carolina before the annual homecoming date.
 
He did not expect to play three days later, especially after the visitors took the lead in the 14th minute before Doyle and Little put Campbell head with strikes early in the second half.  The Camels outshot the Indians 23-12 on the day, but Catawba drew level in the 71st minute.
 
Morse then called on Flintom to check in late in the contest.
 
My friends and I cheered madly from the stands when our former dormmate entered a game at home for the first time in his career.  Less than a minute later, our eyes bulged when it appeared that Ward would be the Homecoming hero.
 
"I literally had been in the game for about 20 seconds, and the ball came over the top to me," said Flintom, a former Cary High School standout.  "Candidly, I had on the wrong shoes, because I didn't think I was going to play.  Went to plant my foot to take a shot and my feet literally buckled under me."
 
Flintom's turf shoes betrayed him at the top of the 18-yard box, and he was unable to get off a shot in front of his parents and the typically large gathering.  Marty's younger brother, Scott, however provided the game winner in the second overtime period and the Camels sent the Homecoming crowd home happy.
 
A Parents' Day tradition
For years, Campbell presented two awards before its annual Parents' Day match, which was customarily played on the last Saturday in October.
 
The Glen Brewster Memorial Award for leadership and courage has been presented annually since 1970 in the memory of Glen Brewster, who played for the Camels in 1966 and 1967 and was later fatally wounded while serving his country in Vietnam.
 
The Jim McVeigh Award has been given to the team's most promising freshman since 1979 in the memory of Jim McVeigh, who died in an automobile accident during his first season in Buies Creek (1976).
 
My soccer fandom reached a different level in 1985 – my third year in Buies Creek – when my buddy Wescott Davant, who was sitting out due to injury, joined me as unofficial cheerleaders in the crowd.
 
Yes, Campbell's cheerleading team led the chants in soccer matches and the costumed mascot "Gaylord" also roamed the Taylor Field sidelines.
 
During that fall of 1985, Wescott and I – believing that our cleverness would help distract Campbell's opponents – attempted to come up with new and creative (in our mind) chants to get the crowd going.  I can't take credit for the call, "EE-ONK, EE-ONK, THE CAMELS ARE COMING, THE CAMELS ARE COMING" but Wescott and I lent our full-throated support along with the student section.
 
At times, our enthusiasm ran over from the stands as we sprinted down the dirt path of the baseball warning track after our team scored.
 
I remember clearly one match, when my former Sanderson High School Algebra II teacher (and also future NC Soccer Hall of Fame coach) Bob Catapano was the center referee for a Campbell match – maybe the 5-1 win over Mercer on Homecoming Day in 1985.  That day, Wescott and I chanted "Dirk's got a rat-tail, Dirk's got a rat-tail" at a visiting player – Dirk Hilyard, who sported that mid-80s hairstyle.  However, Dirk drew a measure of revenge when he scored the Bears' only goal midway through the second half.
 
It was also the day that "Coach" Catapano, as we referred to him in high school, admonished my behavior in front of several hundred of my fellow Camel supporters.  Seems that I had used "Coach's" first name when I disagreed vehemently with one of his decisions, and he definitely heard what I yelled, given the fact that I was walking back and forth in front of the stands, not two paces off the touchline.
 
After re-starting the game, Coach Catapano ran by the sidelines and yelled, "Stan! Sit down and shut up!"  I was equally thrilled and mortified that a high school coaching legend, who obviously knew what he was doing as a center referee, had admonished me while the game was ongoing.
 
In pre-game ceremonies on Parents' Day 1985, senior Per Jensen was presented with the Glen Brewster Memorial Award and Jimmy Morrissey received the Jim McVeigh Award as the team's most promising freshman.
 
The Camels followed with a 6-0 shellacking of Columbus College, which briefly was a Big South Conference member.  David Doyle and Grant Serafy scored two goals each on a warm and clear Autumn Day.  Doyle's second strike in less than a minute gave the Camels a 2-0 lead just over a half hour into the contest.
 
The celebration that followed also produced the lead photograph that accompanies this story.  In front of a jam-packed grandstand, Doyle (11), Serafy (21) and Chris Perkins are locked in a hug.  In the background, one can see two students in the middle of a leaping high-five.  Wescott is nattily dressed in a t-shirt, shorts, sneakers, a necktie and sport coat.  The other student, wearing a plaid shirt and shorts with his sweatshirt tied around his waist, is yours truly.
 
The end of an era
The final two soccer games played at Taylor Field were a fitting end to the 23-year stretch when Campbell's baseball field hosted "football" matches in the fall.
 
In the last regular season contest at the site, the Camels met the UNC Tar Heels, coached by Dorrance, who two years earlier lost to Morse in the recruiting war for prep All-Americans Clark and Doyle.  On the rainy, windy and cool night before Halloween, the Tar Heels took a 2-1 lead into the half, thanks to a goal from future All-American David Smyth, who was the primary object of the Campbell student section's attention throughout the match.
 
Just over seven minutes into the second period, Marcus Martin (who was a classmate of mine at Sanderson High) scored to put the Tar Heels in front 3-1.  However, McCormick drew the Camels within one with just under 20 minutes remaining in regulation.  Larry Henson then provided the equalizer with 7:55 left on the clock.
 
A game where the referee whistled 59 fouls (33 committed by the Tar Heels) and issued 10 yellow cards (six on the Camels) deservedly ended in a 3-3 draw after 110 minutes of regulation and overtime.
 
Campbell began defense of its Big South Conference title when the Camels hosted Armstrong State on a cloudy and cool Saturday, Nov. 16.  The second-seeded Camels dispatched the Pirates 5-1 thanks to goals from five different players –Perkins, MacDonald, Andre Hardware, McCormick and Ian Wilson.
 
A week later at Conway, S.C., the Camels avenged their only league loss by defeating Radford 3-1 in the Big South final.  Doyle scored twice and Jensen was named tournament MVP.  Of course, Wescott and I made the trip to the Myrtle Beach area for the game.
 
Little did I know that match – when the Camels carried Coach Morse off the field following the post-game awards ceremony – would be my last as a rowdy, vocal college soccer fan.
 
One season later, my senior year, Campbell's sports information director David Snipes invited me to serve as the public address announcer for home soccer games after the team moved to its current home across campus.

Two years after graduating, I accepted the job as Campbell's sports information director in the summer of 1989 and spent much of the next three decades as the media contact – and home game public address announcer – for the soccer teams.
 
A special place
After his final game in November 1983, Marty Scarborough followed the team's tradition at the time of tying the shoelaces of his soccer cleats together and tossing the pair over a telephone line that stretched beyond the right field fence at Taylor Field.
 
He also worked on the physical plant crew that cleared rocks out of the land that eventually was transformed into the pitch where the Campbell Soccer Stadium now sits. 
 
But Taylor Field, where he had so many memories of watching and playing games throughout his youth and college days, still tugged on his emotions.  So much so, that for years after he graduated, he would return to the site – even though no more soccer games were being played there.
 
"If I had an important decision to make about something, I would park around Taylor Field and sit there and think about things," said Scarborough.
 
Clark and Flintom share some of the same feelings about their first collegiate home field.
 
"At Taylor Field, it always felt like the crowd was right on top of you," said Flintom.  "Clearly the new field had a better surface to play on.  I was just thrilled that I was playing college soccer, it was wonderful."
 
The excitement of playing under the lights in front of a large crowd stands foremost among Clark's memories more than 40 years after he walked off Taylor Field as a player for the last time.
 
"I was almost sad when they built the new soccer complex, it never had the same electricity," said Clark, who played his senior season at the new stadium.  "The stands were sitting up higher; we didn't have lights then.  The playing surface was great, just not the same atmosphere."
 
If you are a Campbell soccer fan of a certain age, you can still pull your car into the parking lot off Main Street where the "new" Buies Creek Post Office is located, get out and look toward the outfield of Jim Perry Stadium.  On a cool Autumn afternoon or evening, gaze out at the long leaf pines, close your eyes and you can almost hear the roar of the crowd, maybe catch a glimpse of the Homecoming Queen being crowned, or even a couple of 21-year-old "kids" jumping around on the sideline in front of the stands, yelling, and having the time of their lives.
 
Campbell at Taylor (Soccer) Field
NCAA Division I era (1977-85)
Year      W-L-T   Notable
1977     5-3-0     defeated NC State 2-1, lost UNC 0-1 OT
1978     1-4-1     tied Duke 1-1 OT
1979     4-2-0     lost UNC 0-2 OT
1980     5-4-1     lost Duke 0-1
1981     7-0-1     Tim Morse's first year as head coach; defeated UNC 3-0
1982     4-3-1     lost #1 Duke 1-7
1983     5-1-0     defeated NC State 3-2, lost UNC 2-5
1984     5-2-1     lost #14 Duke 2-4 OT
1985     7-1-1     tied UNC 3-3 OT
Total     43-20-6 (.667); Morse era – 28-7-4 (.769)
 
Coda – Since moving to the Eakes Athletic Complex in 1986 – and starting it's women's program in 1992 – Campbell's soccer teams have enjoyed tremendous success at the NCAA's top level.  The teams have combined to make six NCAA postseason appearances, earn national rankings, and send dozens of players to the professional ranks.
 
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Women's Empowerment Spotlight: Hailey Heyvelt (Aug. 12, 2026)
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Tales from the Creek podcast (July 24, 2026) Frankie Delconte '84
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