At the end of the 1979, Bill Campbell was 39 years old and a struggling football coach. A six-year stint as an assistant at Boston College rewarded him with the head job at Columbia in 1974, where he was twice an All-Ivy player a decade and a half earlier.
It didn't go well.
Campbell won just 12 games in six seasons, dipping out after a 1-8 campaign in that '79 season. But Campbell had what many of his peers in that station did not: two degrees from Columbia. He left football to go into the advertising world. From there he led Kodak's film efforts in Europe. Campbell left that job to run marketing for a then-unheard of Silicon Valley company named after a fruit (and it wasn't Kiwi).
Campbell spend the remainder of his years forging one of the most successful careers in Silicon Valley, as head of a company that pioneered tablet computing, and as CEO of Intuit.
Though Campbell left the game, the game never really left him. He retained a seat on the National Football Foundation's Board of Directors, eventually becoming the namesake for the NFF's Campbell Trophy, honoring the top scholar-athlete in college football. But beyond that, Campbell served as something of a mentor to Steve Jobs, Google co-founder Larry Page and a host of Silicon Valley All-Stars. A group of men with enough net worth to buy South America called Campbell their coach.
Campbell passed away Monday after a long battle with cancer.
Here's what Alphabet (read: Google) chairman Eric Schmidt had to say of Campbell:
"Bill Campbell, our very close friend, died this morning. A man with a huge heart, who hugged everyone he met with, was more than a mentor. He helped us build Google and in countless ways made our success possible. We started with him as an external coach but he quickly became the internal management expert. He attended our staff meetings, met with management, and spent countless hours with our leadership. He helped build our Board of Directors, and helped build our culture. He worked very very closely with our founders in every possible way.
“His contribution to the success of Google and now Alphabet is incalculable. His legacy is the smile that he created on everyones face, and the great leaders of the Valley whom he coached. Bill was a truly gifted man, and the world lost a great leader this morning.”
It's safe to say American life would not be what it is today without Bill Campbell. It's also safe to say Bill Campbell would not have been who he was without coaching and playing football.