Then-junior Stacy (Leeper) Campion was the only player on the SM East girls basketball team without matching shoes.
Her mother worked multiple jobs to make ends meet while also covering her daughter’s sports expenses. When the head basketball coach, who was also the athletic director at the time, asked where her matching shoes were, she told him she couldn’t afford them.
Oh, yeah. You’re from the other side of Mission.
“I could play regardless of what my shoes were,” Campion said. “I just used that [comment] to work harder. And I eventually got a full scholarship.”
Campion earned a full-ride athletic and academic scholarship to the University of Kansas in 2001 for soccer. From working as a referee from age 11 to maintaining academic excellence as a Jayhawk Scholar-Athlete honors, she showed her versatility as a player on the field and as a person outside of soccer, according to head soccer coach Jamie Kelly.
Her coach’s comment instilled in her a strong sense of compassion and equality that she has carried into youth sports coaching, in hopes of treating every player the same, regardless of their background, according to SM East Hall of Fame.
On Jan. 16, Campion was inducted into SM East’s Athletic Hall of Fame, alongside former club teammate and fellow 2001 SM East graduate Carrie (Fry) Robinson.
There are currently 17 members of the SM East Hall of Fame — Robinson and Campion were the first two soccer players to be inducted.
“Being in the SM East Hall of Fame is an exclusive honor,” athletic director Ryan Johnson said. “It's recognizing the very best of the best, people who represent competitive excellence, but also have outstanding character, leadership and citizenship.”
Induction into the Hall of Fame is a vetting process that includes a small committee of former coaches, current coaches and community members evaluating nominations and then sending a congratulations letter to those whom they’ve selected.
Most importantly, inductees to the Hall of Fame must continue to represent Lancer values in their lives beyond high school, according to Johnson.
“What [Campion and Robinson] did, especially in the years after they left, set up a precedent and a tradition for those players that followed to try to live up to those standards of not only their accomplishments on the field, but how they led and what they did and the people that they were,” Kelly said.
Robinson’s and Campion’s 1999 East soccer team led an undefeated season then to a first-place state championship.
But without looking into the stories behind the players, this statistic becomes all that represents the team, rather than the hard work and the moments that led them there, according to Kelly.
Without context, it would never be known that the 1999 team almost lost its undefeated record.
The Lancers were taking on Olathe East. The score was tied 0-0. Olathe East made a shot. Campion headed the ball out. The referee's whistle blew — for a handball on Campion.
A handball in the box against SM East would result in a penalty kick for Olathe East.
This almost-given goal against SM East could’ve ended the 1999 team’s undefeated run, until a rare occurrence of the referees overturning the call saved the team.
“It was one of those individual moments that sticks with me as part of the season that we had; it was just one of those things,” Campion said. “Our team that year just had so many amazing moments, and then to end up undefeated and bulldozing Olathe East later in the year was just like icing on the cake.”
Robinson holds the girls’ soccer scoring record to this day, with 36 goals in one season — the boys’ soccer scoring record is 23 goals.
But this statistic isn't the only way Robinson is remembered at SM East. According to Kelly, the head soccer coach at the time, Jim Ricker, had restrictions for how many goals she could score.
“She could have just gone [and scored],” Kelly said. “She could’ve probably scored five or six goals a game, easily. But she also understood the team aspect of [the sport], and let some other girls get in there and get some touches.”
Beyond her high school and collegiate soccer career at Indiana University, Robinson continues to put effort into the community, going beyond just being a memorable soccer player with awards and highlights.
Robinson started Finesse Soccer, an all-female training academy, in Kansas City, KS in 2010.
“That’s huge for the community, and that's something that the girls can look up to,” Kelly said. “Besides the accomplishments that [Robinson] had, being able to recognize that is almost maybe more important [for the younger players], because that's the real world, and they're like, ‘Hey, you guys can grow up and run your own business one day and have success doing it.’”
Campion hopes current athletes remember her hard work, both as an individual and as a teammate.
“No individual can do it on their own,” Campion said. “It takes the whole team out there and I just hope people remember to be a good teammate. [The Hall of Fame] is recognition for the team, not just myself, but for our team as a whole, what we were able to accomplish in the time there. It's just a representation of how we all came together and made things happen.”
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