Published: January 19, 2007 11:22 pm         

Terre Haute South grad hired as Dolphins new head coach

TERRE HAUTE — Former Terre Haute South Vigo High School athletic standout Cam Cameron is the new head coach of the National Football League’s Miami Dolphins.

Cameron, who has been the offensive coordinator for the San Diego Chargers for the past five years, takes over the Miami job from former Dolphins’ coach Nick Saban, who left Miami to coach at the University of Alabama.

“Needless to say we’re about as proud as we could be,” said Cameron’s step-father, Tom Harp, who was the head football coach at Indiana State University from 1973-78 and also served as head coach at Duke and Cornell. Harp, and Cameron’s mother Barbara, now live in North Carolina.

Cameron, 46, was born in Chapel Hill, N.C., and moved with his family to Terre Haute in 1973. He won the prized McMillan Award in 1978 and 1979, received all-state recognition in football and basketball and was named the Fellowship of Christian Athletes’ National High School Athlete of the Year in 1979.

“I remember Cam took over as [South’s] quarterback at the end of his sophomore year,” said former teammate Chris Newton, now judge of Vigo County Superior Court Division 4. “That was kind of unheard of to have a sophomore play like that … I realized by my senior year he knew more about football than anybody I had been around.”

Others who knew Cameron during his Terre Haute days have equally high regard for the new Dolphins’ coach.

“He has an extremely good offensive mind,” said Paul Kelley, who taught Cameron science and coached his “B-Team” football squad at South and has kept in touch with his former student. “He is innovative. I think he’ll do well.”

III

After graduating from Indiana University with a business degree in 1983, Cameron tried to become the head football coach at Terre Haute South, according to his step-father. “It didn’t work out,” Harp said, so “with [then-IU basketball coach] Bobby Knight’s help” Cameron landed a graduate assistantship at the University of Michigan. That led to stints as quarterback coach and receivers coach and, after 10 years at Michigan, to an assistant coaching position with the NFL’s Washington Redskins.

In 1997, Cameron returned to Indiana to take the head coaching position at IU until 2001. Although IU fired Cameron with three years remaining on his contract, “he beat everybody in [the Big Ten] except Michigan and Ohio State,” Harp said. “There aren’t too many Indiana football coaches who have done that.”

Cameron’s next move was to San Diego and the offensive coordinator’s post for the Chargers, a team with one of the strongest offenses in the NFL.

“He was happy at the Chargers, so he must have gotten a really, really strong opportunity” in Miami, said Bill Edwards, an ISU football player under Cameron’s father from 1975-79 and someone who helped a young Cameron learn to punt and kick. “Cam is a good teacher. He is good at grooming talent. Evidently the Dolphins are looking for that,” Edwards said.

“I think he will be great with the Miami Dolphins,” said former South teammate Tom K. Sappington. “He is geared toward a pro-style coach. I think he will do a great job.”

III

Cameron has credited his step-father, Harp, with being the most influential person in his life, and others seem to agree.

“Tom and [Cameron’s mother Barbara] deserve a lot of credit,” former coach Kelley said, adding that Cameron showed “outstanding” promise even in high school. Cameron wasn’t the fastest kid on the team, Kelley said, laughing, but he could anticipate what was going to occur and could keep ahead of other players on the field.

In addition, Cameron wasn’t afraid of working and practicing hard, according to those who knew him in Terre Haute.

He will be “an outstanding coach,” Newton said. “His intelligence, unbelievable work ethic and his integrity are strengths he brings to the Dolphins.”

“He was a good athlete and a dedicated athlete,” Harp said. “He just wanted to be the best athlete he could be.”

“I’m going to send [Cameron] an e-mail to congratulate him,” said former South teammate Bucky Whitlock, owner of Golf Headquarters in Terre Haute. “I think he’ll be successful. He has been successful at pretty much everything he’s ever done.”

Howard Greninger can be contacted at (812) 231-4204 or howard.greninger@tribstar.com

Arthur Foulkes can be contacted at (812) 231-4232 or arthur.foulkes@tribstar.com.