8 — Tuesday, October 29, 2019
Sports
The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com

Partridge, Campanile form friendship in football

The year Paramus Catholic 
High School finally got over 
the hump, going from four 
straight losing seasons to a state 
championship in 1997, the team 
was full of the kind of players 
that might not go onto the NFL, 
but could still elevate everyone 
around them.
It was the kind of season 
that sparks careers and forges 
connections that come back 
around, so maybe it was no 
surprise that 22 years later, two 
of those guys ended up on the 
same team again.
Chris 
Partridge 
was 
the 
senior captain, the heart and 
soul of the team who doubled as 
a hard-hitting middle linebacker 
and tough-as-nails right guard.
Anthony 
Campanile 
was 
the coach’s son, the talented 
freshman quarterback whose 
season was derailed by injury.
The two friends kept in touch 
throughout the years, crossing 
paths as they rose in the 
coaching profession. But they’d 
never been at the same place 
before, not until this year.
Now, 
Partridge 
and 
Campanile 
are 
reunited 
at 
Michigan — Partridge coaching 
safeties 
and 
special 
teams 
and 
Campanile 
coaching 
linebackers.
In some ways, they’re two 
guys talking football, just as 
they always have. The stakes are 
just a little higher now.
***
Paramus Catholic’s coach at 
the time was Mike Campanile, 
Anthony’s 
father 
and 
the 
patriarch of a quintessential 
New Jersey football family. 
Mike’s four sons are all coaches 
— Nunzio is the interim head 
coach and offensive coordinator 
at Rutgers, and Vito and Nicky 
are 
successful 
high 
school 
coaches back where they grew 
up.
Anthony and his brothers 
spent their childhoods coming 
to practice with their dad. They 
got to know the older kids, who 
made them feel special. As 
Anthony grew up, he naturally 
meshed with Partridge, who 
also came from a football family 
— his father, Rick, was a punter 
in the NFL and helped coach 
high school teams. Partridge 
was an easy person to look up to.
Campanile managed to make 
varsity as a freshman but tore 
his ACL over the summer before 
he had played a single snap. He 
was forced to watch from the 
sidelines as his team made a run.
Partridge was an inspiration 
to Campanile that entire season. 
He was never the most athletic 
or naturally talented guy, but 
he worked hard to mold himself 
into not only a top player, but a 
leader. The way he and the other 
team leaders went about their 
season made Campanile want 
to work that much harder to get 
back so he could play with them. 
In the process, Partridge and 
the other seniors helped guide 
Campanile’s recovery.
“I wish they did play together 
in high school,” Mike told The 
Daily in a phone interview. 
“(Anthony) used to watch those 
guys, the older guys, and he 
became close with those guys 
from not being able to play. He 
would watch them all day, watch 

every little thing they did. … It 
was a good year, it really was. 
Too bad he couldn’t have really 
participated with them on the 
field. That would’ve been — ah! 
— it would’ve been so good. But 
what are you gonna do?”
After 
Paramus 
Catholic 
scored the game-winning two-
point conversion in the state 
title game, Partridge headed 
off to college while Campanile, 
finally recovered from injury, 
stepped into a larger role. But 
their friendship, as it turned 
out, was just beginning.
In college, the two hung out 
over breaks and during the 
summer, heading to the Jersey 
Shore and talking football. And 
when both entered the coaching 
world, their trajectories were 
remarkably similar.
As 
Anthony 
started 
his 
freshman 
year 
at 
Rutgers, 
Partridge was about to graduate 
from Lafayette College and 
knew 
his 
feature 
laid 
in 
coaching. So he gave Mike a call.
Mike 
no 
longer 
coached 
at 
Paramus 
Catholic 
but 
encouraged Partridge to apply 
there anyway. Mike suspected 
what Partridge later proved: 
that he had what it took to be a 
champion, on the field and on 
the sidelines.
Partridge 
served 
as 
the 
defensive 
coordinator 
and 
assistant head coach of Paramus 
Catholic from 2003-04 before 
brief college stints at Lafayette 
and The Citadel. After three 
years 
away 
from 
football, 
Partridge came back as the head 
coach of his alma 
mater in 2010. In 
2012, his literal 
and 
figurative 
return to his roots 
was complete, as 
he lifted Paramus 
Catholic to its first 
state title since 
that fateful one 
back in 1997.
Campanile 
coached 
linebackers for one year at 
Fair Lawn High School before 
becoming 
the 
defensive 
coordinator and later offensive 
coordinator, at Don Bosco Prep, 
one of Paramus Catholic’s most 
bitter rivals. For two years, the 
friends coached against each 
other.
“Didn’t say a word to each 
other, before or after (the 
game),” 
Partridge 
told 
The 
Daily. “Later, about a month or 
so. We’re both competitors, so 
we know it’s all in good love.”
Through all this, the two met 
up at times, talking Xs and Os 
with whatever means they could 
— even if it meant scrounging 
for a napkin and scrawling out 
hypothetical plays.
Partridge was the first to 
make the jump to the Power 
Five when he took a job as a 
recruiting analyst with the 
Wolverines in 2015. When the 
Scarlet Knights visited Ann 
Arbor that year, Campanile, 
then at Rutgers as a wide 
receivers and tight ends coach, 
brushed paths with Partridge 
once again.
During 
his 
tenure 
at 
Michigan, Partridge has helped 
bring 
in 
several 
big-time 
New Jersey players — among 
them Rashan Gary, Michael 
Dwumfour and Cesar Ruiz. But 
last year, he recruited more than 

just players. A position opened 
on the Wolverines’ defensive 
staff, and Partridge knew just 
the guy.
Partridge 
had 
talked 
to 
Campanile about his job at 
Michigan before, and how much 
he loved the place. But this time, 
he hoped his friend could see for 
himself. He called Campanile 
and told him, “This could be 
something special, and I think 
it would be awesome for you to 
look into.”
Then, Partridge told Jim 
Harbaugh 
about 
Campanile. 
With 
Campanile’s 
other 
connections on staff — he knew 
defensive 
coordinator 
Don 
Brown from his time at Boston 
College 
and 
then-offensive 
analyst Ben McDaniels from 
a mutual stint at Rutgers — 
he seemed like a perfect fit. 
Campanile came out to see for 
himself, an official visit of sorts, 
and felt right at home. He was 
hired in January of this year.
In football, chemistry on 
the staff is just as important 
as chemistry on the team. 
Otherwise, it becomes every 
man for himself, people just 
striving for paychecks instead 
of working together towards a 
common goal. The way Mike 
describes it, good camaraderie 
lights a fire under a coaching 
staff, and that rubs off on the 
players. In a broader sense, 
communication is vital in such 
a 
high-stress 
position, 
and 
familiarity can breed that kind 
of assertiveness.
“It was awesome because we 
work 
really 
hard 
and 
you’ve 
gotta 
have guys you 
trust and lean 
on and stuff 
like that in this 
profession,” 
Partridge said. 
“I think now 
we have that. 
It’s so huge.
“And 
(Campanile) just adds to it 
because I’ve known him for 
so long. It’s cool just to see the 
mesh of coaches that we have 
here now and the fact that we 
get along so well for so long, I 
knew he would fit if that makes 
sense. I just knew he would be a 
guy that Jim would love and the 
whole staff would love.”
At 
Michigan, 
Partridge 
and 
Campanile 
are 
expert 
recruiters — bouncing New 
Jersey recruiting knowledge off 
each other — and work closely 
together on the defensive staff. 
Partridge came to his interview 
straight from his office, where 
he and Campanile were drawing 
up schemes. They bring not 
only that all-important sense of 
camaraderie, but also the same 
qualities that lifted their once-
moribund school: toughness, 
leadership and a will to win.
Back in the old days, when 
Partridge and Campanile were 
both new to the wide world of 
coaching, Partridge remembers 
the two joking about how they 
were so like-minded — wouldn’t 
it be fun to work together?
Campanile 
maintains 
that 
they 
never 
exactly 
framed 
it that way. But he still sits 
back sometimes and thinks to 
himself, “What are the chances 
of this?” He knows that if 
you went back and told the 

freshman quarterback with a 
torn ACL that he’d be here, with 
Partridge, coaching at the same 
school, he wouldn’t believe you.
“How often does two kids 
from the same team end up 
coaching at a major college 
together?” Mike said. “That’s 
especially if one of them’s not 
the head coach. … It’s kind of 
strange that they ended up on 
the same team.”
***
That 1997 season did more for 
Partridge and Campanile than 
simply making sure they left 
with a trophy.
Ask Campanile, and he’ll say 
Partridge was a masterful team 
leader the entire season. Ask 
Partridge, and he’ll tell you how 
much Campanile’s passion for 
the game shined through. Ask 
either one, and they’ll tell you 
they could tell the other was 
going to be a coach, even back 
then. And guiding their team 
was a perfect role model in the 
business.
Mike was a master motivator, 
pushing players to places they 
didn’t believe they could take 
themselves. He believed that 
hard work and leadership were 
vital, both on the sidelines and 
in the locker room. Those are 
values both still take to heart.
“(Mike) really gave me the 
foundation 
of 
how 
football 
should be played,” Partridge 
said. “Hard-nosed, tough, just 
the qualities of an old-school 
coach that I try to employ now.”
Mike, who still coaches high 
school freshmen even into his 
70s, follows his former players 
from afar. He offers up advice 
— “You can’t play the game 
for them,” he says to Anthony 
when he’s too hard on himself 
— and sees in the two the same 
competitive fire they had back 
in high school.
Now, 
Partridge 
and 
Campanile, two kids who grew 
up and won a state championship 
together, are striving for Big 
Ten championships together. 
They sometimes hit the road 
together on recruiting trips 
and meet up with their families 
other childhood friends — many 
of whom are also coaching 
— when they’re back in New 
Jersey. Instead of scavenging 
for napkins to get in some Xs 
and Os, they get to talk football 
together, all day, every day, on 
the whiteboards in their offices.
“I think the similarities really 
lie in what we learned growing 
up,” Campanile told The Daily. 
“About, there’s nothing wrong 
with 
being 
tough. 
There’s 
nothing wrong with having 
character. … There’s really only 
one way to do it. Be tough, do 
your job, do it to the best of your 
ability. But love your players. 
Be a rational, competitive and 
compassionate person.
“ … That’s something I think 
we probably learned when we 
were young, from our staff in 
high school, which inspired 
us to be coaches, among other 
guys that we played with in high 
school to be coaches. That’s the 
cool thing.”
Maybe the odds of them both 
ending up here were small on 
paper, but after the two friends 
built their foundations in the 
same place and brushed paths 
for years, it’s only appropriate 
that things have come full circle.

ALEC COHEN/Daily
Special teams coordinator and safeties coach Chris Partridge has shared a friendship with Anthony Campanile since the two attended high school together.

ARIA GERSON
Daily Sports Editor

Michigan finishes 13th

The circumstances weren’t 
advantageous for the Michigan 
women’s golf team this past 
weekend 
at 
the 
Landfall 
Tradition 
tournament 
in 
Wilmington, N.C. But that’s 
what’s 
expected 
when 
competing in a tournament 
fielding 13 of 18 teams ranked 
in the top 50 on a challenging 
course in inclement weather. 
And 
yet, 
the 
Wolverines 
finished in a formidable 13th 
place. The team finished at 
27-over par (296, 303, 292) over 
the course of three days and 54 
holes. Junior Ashley Kim was 
the top individual performer, 
finishing 2-over par and tied for 
17th place. 
Michigan felt like it had 
something to prove. Coming 
into this high-level tournament, 
the last of the fall season, the 
Wolverines 
hoped 
to 
finish 
on a high note and gain some 
momentum for the offseason 
before the year picks up in 
February.
“We had quite a few flashes 
of some high-level golf,” said 
Michigan coach Jan Dowling. 
“In our final round, we really 
played quite well. I think we had 
a little bit of something to prove. 
We were the fourth-lowest team 
score (on the last day). This was 
definitely a moral victory.”
Going into the final day of 
the tournament, Michigan was 
in 15th place and focused on 
moving up in the standings. They 
accomplished this by limiting 
their mistakes and capitalizing 
and staying in control on par 
5s. In the final round, they were 
3-under par on such holes.
There 
were 
plenty 
of 
positives to take away from 
this tournament, like Kim’s 
continued consistency and good 
play. This was Kim’s second 
top-20 individual finish in four 
events. In the first round, she 
shot 2-under par, notching her 

third under-par round of the 
season. Her play this tournament 
reaffirmed everything she has 
been working on throughout the 
summer and fall. 
“It was nice for her to see (her 
hard work) come together on a 
hard golf course in some pretty 
tough 
conditions,” 
Dowling 
said. “That’s only going to build 
some confidence for her. She is 
working on the right things and 
that validates the work she has 
done.”
Sophomore 
Ashley 
Lau 
followed Kim by finishing the 
tournament 6-over par (72, 76, 
74) and tied for 39th place. This 
was her second top-50 finish of 
the season. 
As a collective, Michigan 
was excited to compete against 
some of the best talent from 
around the country. While it did 
not finish as well as they did in 
similar caliber tournaments at 
the beginning of the season, this 
tournament showed what they 
are capable of. 
“If you look at our schedule 
we are constantly trying to play 
against the best teams on some 
great golf courses,” Dowling 
said. “That really prepares us 
for the big picture which is 
the postseason and the NCAA 
championships. It’s a really big 
challenge but it’s also something 
that our team welcomes every 
time we tee it up. It’s always 
a great opportunity and we 
embrace it as much as we can.”
The 
Wolverines 
do 
not 
compete in another tournament 
until February but will use this 
time off to prepare for the spring 
season.
“The idea for the spring just 
keep building on those flashes of 
brillance we had,” Dowling said. 
“It shows our capability. We have 
a great lineup of tournaments in 
the spring and have some nice 
changes to work on our games, 
compete, and spend some good 
time over the winter to make 
some 
improvements 
in 
our 
consistency.”

‘M’ gains experience

The Eastern Michigan Fall 
Classic is a small event at the end 
of cross country season. You could 
even say it’s unimportant, but 
that’s not the case to Michigan 
coaches Mike McGuire and Kevin 
Sullivan who view it as a great 
oppurtunity to showcase young 
runners’ talent and the work 
they’ve put in all season.
The 
Michigan 
men’s 
and 
women’s cross country teams 
competed at the Eastern Michigan 
Fall Classic on Friday in Dexter, 
Mich. While a small event, the 
meet is still a good benchmark for 
the young Wolverines searching 
for experience at the end of the 
fall season.
Michigan rested its starting 
lineups in preparation for the Big 
Ten championships meet next 
Sunday. And even though the 
meet was not scored, that didn’t 
stop the Wolverines from having 
what Sullivan labeled a positive 
day, gaining experience for their 
young runners. 
For the men, sophomore Gabe 
Mudel was the first to cross for 
the Wolverines in fourth place, 
with a time of 15:04. Freshmen 
Colton Yesney and James Gedris 
crossed the line next in seventh 
and ninth, respectively.
“Our guys did a good job of 
injecting themselves in the race 
and being competitive,” Sullivan 
said.
The women’s team brought 
a larger group to the meet and 
got similar results. Five runners 
finished from spots eight to 13, led 
by senior Faith Reynolds in eighth 

place.
“Faith’s been running with the 
travel squad all year so I thought it 
was a strong race, ” said Michigan 
coach Mike McGuire.
This is the second time the 
Wolverines 
have 
raced 
this 
course this season, the first of 
which was in the season opener 
at the Michigan Open, where they 
had overall slower performances.
“We came back and improved 
on what they established in late 
August on this course,” McGuire 
said.
This all comes after an entire 
fall of training and an entire 
season of experience. And while 
most of these runners don’t get 
to see action as often as some 
of their teammates, when the 
opportunity arose on Friday, they 
showed up.
“Really 
happy 
that 
their 
body of work in the falls being 
reflected,” McGuire said.
While 
the 
runners 
here 
aren’t running in the postseason 
this year, they may next year, 
making this experience possibly 
invaluable.
“We will have people running 
in the Big Ten meet who were in 
this position a year ago,” McGuire 
said.
Preparing for next year isn’t 
all experience is good for. In the 
more immediate reality, this 
is a time for young runners to 
showcase what they’ve worked 
towards. 
“This is like studying all 
fall and taking an exam at the 
end,” McGuire said. “This exam 
happens to be different and 
maybe next year, this exam will 
be the Big Ten meet.”

We’re both 
competitors, so 
we know it’s all 
in good love.

SPENCER RAINES
Daily Sports Writer

FILE PHOTO/Daily
Michigan coach Mike McGuire is getting ready for Big Ten Championships.

WOMEN’S GOLF

LILY ISRAEL
Daily Sports Writer

