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BALANCING ACT: Joplin standout brothers Fielding and Hobbs Campbell find success as dual spring sport athletes

By:
Lucas Davis

Coming out of eighth grade, Joplin’s Fielding Campbell wanted to attempt a rare feat when it came to being a prep student-athlete—compete in two spring sports at the same time.

Now, as he hits the final stretch of his senior year as a member of the Joplin golf and baseball teams, Fielding has set the groundwork for his younger brother, Hobbs, a sophomore at Joplin, to do the same thing. 

PAVING THE WAY

Growing up, Fielding always had a deep passion for the game of baseball as well as a love for golf. With his high school career drawing closer, Fielding, a Missouri Southern golf commit, still felt like baseball was his true love, but he said golf was his future. However, when it came time to choose between the two as the spring season approached during his freshman year at Joplin High School, he opted for a different route, dedicating his time to both. 

“I knew I wanted to play both sports by the end of my eighth grade year,” Fielding said. “I wasn’t sure if the coaches were going to let me or not because I hadn’t seen or heard of anything done like that before. I’ve had such a passion for baseball my entire life, so I knew I wanted to continue playing that. And golf, I knew I could be good at it. I thought if the coaches agreed to give me the opportunity, I could succeed in both sports.”

Ultimately, it was decided that Fielding would be allowed to play both sports, with a slight emphasis on baseball. If Fielding didn’t have a golf tournament to play in, he was expected to be at a baseball practice or game. Which meant, much of his practice and preparation in golf would be on his own time.

“I am extremely grateful to have this opportunity,” Fielding said. “I did not think it would be possible because of all of the conflicts. The coaches explained to me how tough it would be. But, I knew it would be worth it in the end to be able to do both.”

Joplin’s Fielding Campbell fields a ball at shortstop during the Eagles’ win at Webb City. Photo by Israel Perez.

That confidence in himself as a freshman, very similar to the same Hobbs has for himself, was actually a big reason why Joplin baseball coach Kyle Wolf, golf coach Jack Pace and cross country/distance coach Dustin Dixon were able to come to an agreement on the Campbell brothers’ desire to play two sports in the spring. 

“Fielding is an athlete, same way with Hobbs,” Pace said. “They are both very competitive. That is what you want to see. … They are both just very good athletes with good heads on their shoulders.”

“First and foremost, Fielding is a competitive kid,” Wolf said. “He really enjoys competing, testing himself and pushing his own limitations to see what he can accomplish. I think that competitiveness is what probably generated his interest in doing both sports in the spring. Over time, his discipline and his toughness probably have shown through.”

“He is a really competitive kid,” Dixon said of Hobbs. “Joplin High School athletics has been pretty successful on the boys side for the past four or five years. That is largely because we have had great athletes and there is not really a great substitute for athleticism. Hobbs Campbell is an example of that. He’s an athlete and is fiercely competitive.”

The biggest concern for all parties involved when Fielding first approached the idea of playing baseball and golf was the commitment it would take while still focusing the proper amount of time on school work. And to say it took some time to get used to the hectic schedule would be an understatement. 

“It’s extremely busy,” Fielding said when asked about his schedule in the spring. “Some days, I’ll have to go to a golf tournament at 8:30 in the morning and then straight to a baseball game on the road. I’ll get back home at 9 at night and have three homework assignments to do. 

“It was really difficult to get used to my freshman and sophomore year because I was just getting into it. Over time, it has gotten a lot easier. I have been able to manage my schedules a lot better.”

Now that Fielding — the Eagles’ starting shortstop as well as a two-time state golf tournament qualifier — is in the midst of his senior season, you could say he has grown accustomed to the chaos. 

“I just love being around everybody,” Fielding said about his passion for baseball. “I have been playing with most of the players my entire life. The coaches are great. It is a really fun atmosphere on the baseball team.”

“I get to come out here and play golf with my friends who I have been playing with for years,” Fielding added about his time on the golf team. “I get to compete and win a lot of tournaments with them. It is a lot of fun.”

And fortunately for his younger brother, Fielding was more than willing to share his experiences and advice in order to help Hobbs transition as smoothly as possible.

“I talked with him about managing his time well,” Fielding said. “Plan ahead for everything and just compete hard. If you do your best in both sports and apply yourself in school, good things will happen.”

FOLLOWING THE FOOTSTEPS

Though he is in his second year of high school, this is actually the first taste of playing two sports in the same season for Hobbs after his freshman year was cut short because of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“This year, I was really on the fence about which sport to play,” Hobbs said. “But, I had a really good cross country season, so I ended up running track. I knew I could (play two sports at once) because Fielding did it and was able to maintain his grades. I knew I could kind of follow in his footsteps.” 

Before COVID brought the spring sports season to a grinding halt a year ago, Hobbs intended to split time between baseball and golf like his older brother. However, after the success he had in the cross country season this spring, a sport he initially was apprehensive about participating in at the high school level, Hobbs opted for participating in distance running for Joplin’s track and field team. 

“In middle school, I ran a (four-minute, 49-second) mile and I won most of the meets, so I knew I was a pretty good distance runner. After that, my dad pretty much forced me to run cross country my freshman year,” Hobbs said with a laugh. “After that, I still really loved baseball and intended to play it my freshman year in the spring. But, I improved a lot in cross country from my freshman to sophomore year — I finished like 34th at the state meet — so I thought I could keep improving at cross country if I ran track this year.”

Joplin’s Hobbs Campbell (1) competes in the 1600 he went on to win in Friday’s Joplin Invitational. Photo by Shawn Fowler.

Getting a firsthand look at what his brother accomplished as a student-athlete was inspirational for Hobbs. And while Fielding often gave advice on how to manage a second sport along with golf, Hobbs was particularly grateful for his brother’s wisdom in terms of the importance of the academic side.

“He definitely told me that he misses a ton of school over the spring, so I had to be able to catch up on school work whenever I could,” Hobbs said. “He told me it is a lot harder to maintain your grades over the spring than it was in any other season.” 

“I go to track practices every day,” Hobbs said. “But there are so many golf matches and tournaments that, recently, I’ll go play golf in the morning and then run track after school at practice or for a meet. I just have to find a way to practice golf and get my homework done on my own time.”

THE SUM OF ALL EFFORTS

The success both Fielding and Hobbs have had as two-sport spring athletes is quite remarkable.
The Joplin’s boys golf is off to a torrid start to the 2021 season, winning each of the first seven events the team has participated in to the point of the season. Plenty of that success is due to quality of play from both Fielding and Hobbs. 

Fielding earned top medalist honors with a first-place six-over-par 78 in the Bird Dog Invitational, while Hobbs earned a top-10 finish with an 85 in the first tournament action of the season. In the Joplin Invitational, Fielding tied for third place with a 78 and Hobbs closed with an 81 to finish seventh. Hobbs finished in a tie for fourth (79) and Fielding placed in a tie for sixth (80) in the Eagles’ victory at the Horton Smith Invitational. In Joplin’s most-recent win at the Ozark Invitational, Fielding finished in second place with a 77, while Hobbs carded an 82 to place just outside the top 10.

“I love golf because it takes a lot of patience,” Hobbs said. “You have to think a lot about every shot. It takes a lot to get better.”

On the baseball diamond, Fielding is the starting shortstop and is hitting .328 on the season. On the mound, he has appeared in five games with four starts and has accumulated a 2.37 earned-run average. 

“I think it is really amazing when I think about what he does,” Wolf said of Fielding. “This past Thursday, he tied for fourth in a golf tournament, hopped in a car to meet us and played a good baseball game in Branson for us. I don’t think people realize how much mental toughness that takes even above the physical component of it. … Baseball and golf are two of the most mentally demanding sports and he is able to compartmentalize a lot of things and have success in both. And he does a tremendous job of maintaining himself as a student. Quite honestly, he is a model student-athlete with what he does.”

To this point in the track and field season, Hobbs has limited participation because of weather postponing the team’s second scheduled meet of the season. However, in the first track meet of the year, Hobbs anchored the third-place finish by 4×800-relay team before winning the 1600-meter run and running a personal record in the 3200. 

At Friday’s Joplin’s Invitational, Hobbs won two both the 1600 (4:25) and the 3200 (9:46). 

“Hobbs comes from a long line of kids who’ve had pretty successful middle school campaigns running for Coach (Kenny) Peters at (Joplin) South,” Dixon said. “We have a pretty good group of cross country kids who have a chance to chase after a state trophy next season, and I think his teammates knew that so they put pressure on him and recruited him to run track. And my goodness, he is looking great right now. … I think he has the talent to be an all-state athlete in all three of his events.”

THE IMPORTANCE OF PLAYING MULTIPLE SPORTS

Not only have Fielding and Hobbs found success in their respective spring sports, but the brothers have had success in other sports as well. Fielding and Hobbs were both members of the basketball program in the winter, while Hobbs also ran cross country in the spring and holds the sixth-fastest time in school history at 16:14.

Asked separately, both agreed being a multi-sport athlete is incredibly important in terms of their overall development as a student-athlete.

“It helps you out a lot mentally, really,” Hobbs said. “You just have to work hard. All of the sports I play have taught me that working hard can really bring you success.”

At the end of it all, Fielding and Hobbs being able to share those memories of playing together as brothers on the Joplin golf team will always produce special moments to look back on. 

“It is really special,” Fielding said. “We have been playing together since I was seven years old. We used to go out every morning with our grandpa. We’ve been doing it every day for the past five or six years in the summer. It is just really fun for it to all come together.”

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2 thoughts on “BALANCING ACT: Joplin standout brothers Fielding and Hobbs Campbell find success as dual spring sport athletes

  1. Lucas:
    Thank you for the wonderful article on Fielding and Hobbs Campbell. I am the grandpa that Fielding mentioned. Everyone at So-Mo Sports are doing a fantastic job, but especially you.

    1. Thank you, sir.

      Jason Peake (other SoMo Sports writer) gave me the idea for the feature. I just tried to execute it as best as possible. Lol. We appreciate your kind words and hope you continue to read our work in the future.

      — LD

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