All Jeff Campbell wanted was to enjoy his final college baseball experience.
He accomplished that -- and much more late Thursday night when the former UND baseball standout won the TD Ameritrade College Home Run Derby in Omaha, Neb.
In an impressive display of power, Campbell blasted 34 home runs out of TD Ameritrade Park -- the longest estimated at 505 feet.
“I still don’t think it’s hit me,” Campbell said on Friday after he arrived home in Florida. “I’m a senior so that was my last college event. It means so much, not just to me, but to the program, too.”
Campbell, a four-year UND standout who wasn’t selected in the recent MLB Draft, said he will continue to work out in Florida where he hopes to field a call from a pro baseball team.
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That call, UND baseball coach Jeff Dodson said, could be coming soon.
“We’ve already gotten some calls from pro teams,” said the UND coach. “He’s going to have some (pro) interest. But you just don’t know where it will go. This definitely didn’t hurt his cause any.”
As a player from a northern baseball program, Campbell probably wasn’t the favorite going into the sixth annual home run derby.
But that changed quickly as the near-sellout crowd at TD Ameritrade Park began to cheer for Campbell, who hit 32 home runs during his UND career.
Campbell blasted 20 home runs in the opening round, a handful of them monster shots.
“When Jeff passed the kid from Georgia Tech (Kel Johnson), the place erupted,” Dodson said. “You can’t buy the type of atmosphere we had.”
Campbell’s 20 home runs set a first-round record for the derby. He added four more in the second round and faced off against Will Craig, the ACC player of the year from Wake Forest, in the finals.
Campbell hit 10 homers in the final round while Craig finished with four.
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Dodson said he wasn’t shocked by Campbell’s win.
“I thought the pressure would be on Jeff in the first round,” said Dodson, who left immediately after the event to recruit in Alabama. “But I really thought he had a chance to win it from what I saw him do every day. In my 21 years of coaching, I’ve had only a handful of guys who can do what Jeff can do.
“And Jeff is a prime-time guy. When the lights are on him, he generally comes through. It was really fun to hear the crowd get behind Jeff. That changed the dynamics of the derby.”
Campbell said the pressure was off after the first round.
“Making the finals was the key,” added Campbell. “After that first round, anything else was extra. After hitting 20 home runs, there wasn’t much more I could have done.”
Campbell’s first three swings in the final round went for home runs. He later hit three more in a row to finish with 10.
In the opening round, Campbell, a 6-foot-2, 225-pound pitcher-first baseman, had a stretch where he hit 12 home runs in 15 swings.
“I got into a good rhythm of hitting a good pitch and then taking a pitch,” said Campbell, who hit pitches from UND assistant coach J.C. Field.
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The derby was a fun atmosphere, added Campbell.
“Everyone was rooting for everyone,” he said.
Campbell said he hasn’t thought too much about the next step of his baseball career, but he’ll be ready.
Campbell said he came to UND to help build the program, which is relatively new to Division I baseball.
His performance in Omaha certainly helped give UND baseball a boost.
“It’s exposure you can’t buy,” Dodson added. “It’s huge for a program like ours. Players are starting to realize they can reach their dreams in college baseball by going to a school like North Dakota.”
