As a 7-year-old growing up in the suburbs of Milwaukee, Jim Campbell spent a lot of time in his backyard playing games by himself — and announcing them. So when people asked him what he wanted to be when he grew up, he said (naturally) a ballplayer.

“And my dad said, ‘No you don’t,’ ” said Campbell, the sports director for Clear Channel Radio. “You want to talk about ballplayers.”

That lesson was reinforced in high school when the 105-pound Campbell saw some of the guys who would be tackling him.

“When I saw that, I didn’t want any part of it,” he said, laughing.

At 27, after a year in the Army and eight years in the business “in one way or another,” Campbell found his way to Youngstown. He wrote 150 stations across the country. WKBN-TV Channel 27 responded.

“They needed somebody now and I was available now,” said Campbell, who was hired as the assistant news director in 1975. “In two weeks, I moved from Rock Island [Wis.] to Boardman.”

Campbell was promoted to sports director in 1976 and broadcast his first high school football game on a rainy Friday night in the fall of 1976. Hubbard beat Akron Central-Hower 24-2. Since then, he’s called hundreds of high school and Youngstown State games on TV and radio.

He’s cultivated a reputation for being professional, prepared and passionate about his job.

“Here’s the important thing,” he said. “You’ve got to come to the booth with a passion for the game and you have to remember it’s still about the kids.”

Clear Channel will broadcast 38 prep football games this fall on three channels: WKBN-AM 570, WNIO-AM 1390 and WBBG-FM 106.1. They’ll broadcast more during the playoffs.

The first two stations focus mainly on Mahoning County and Columbiana County games, while the latter favors Trumbull County.

Campbell, whose job also involves ad sales for the games, generally picks the schedule in April. Some games are obvious (Poland-Canfield, Mooney-Ursuline) and some require a little foresight.

The company will air more Inter Tri-County League games than usual this year and Campbell tries to make sure the best games get covered, regardless of school size.

On games he calls, Campbell meets with coaches two days early to get interviews, rosters and starting lineups. He arrives at least an hour before each game to check the equipment and get his papers in order. (I arrive just before the game and shout, “Anyone got rosters?”)

He’s seen just about every good player from the Valley over his 30-plus years, but doesn’t single out one as the best. Mario Manningham had the one of most electrifying performances he’s seen, scoring four TDs to lift the Raiders past Massillon in 2002.

Ursuline’s Division IV state championship game against Coldwater in 2000 probably gets the nod for best game, he said.

“Just because of the constant shifts in momentum and the emotion and someone scoring every possession,” he said. “There have been a lot of exciting and dramatic games, but that one, simply because of the way it was played, always jumps out.”

High school football sells itself in the Mahoning Valley, but Campbell likes to think the stations’ strong signals and professional broadcasting play a part, too.

“If I can toot our horn a little bit, on Friday nights our high school football coverage last fall had more listeners than the next five radio stations in the market put together, no matter what they’re doing, playing music, talking, whatever,” said Campbell, who also praised the stations’ pregame and postgame shows. “I think people understand that A, they’re going to get a good call. I think all our crews are good. And B, it’s gonna be fun and it’s gonna be informative.

“I tell the crews that no matter what they do within the parameters of professional broadcasters, have fun, so the audience has fun. Otherwise, why would they listen?”

Power poll

After last week’s top 10, I decided to split my poll into big schools and small schools. Mooney and Ursuline, by the way, are lumped in with the big schools because, well, who are we kidding?

Top 5 big schools: 1. Ursuline, 2. (tie) Mooney, Boardman, 4. Poland, 5. Hubbard. Honorable mention: Liberty, Fitch.

Top 5 small schools: 1. South Range, 2. McDonald, 3. LaBrae, 4. Girard, 5. Leetonia. HM: Western Reserve, Columbiana.

Blitz picks

Alert reader Abe Sheinker wrote to ask about how we figure out the top passer, rusher and receiver for our Blitz picks each week.

For our staff competition, we go strictly by yards. For the Blitz picks on Vindy.com, it’s a little more complicated. There’s a formula that weighs yards and scoring. (If you want the specifics, you can go to vindy.com/blitz/picks/help.) Youngstown Christian QB John Pecchia, Western Reserve WR Clayton Hull and Liberty RB Fitzgerald Toussaint were last week’s winners.

Also, we staffers choose our top rusher/passer/receiver each week from a list of five or six options. Those options are listed on Vindy.com.

Quick hits

A few people asked me about picking my high school, Uniontown Lake, to beat Boardman last week, so let me clarify. If the Blue Streaks are playing Boardman, Fitch or the Dallas Cowboys, I’m picking them. ... I may stop picking Columbiana, though. If I picked them to lose to the Cowboys, I’m pretty sure the opposite would happen. ... Make sure you check out Brian Warchol’s interview this week on Vindy.com, where he talks about a deer ramming him into a tree. When he recovered, his Columbiana teammates gave him a “Fear the Deere” John Deere sticker and wore Bambi shirts with the phrase, “Where’s Warchol?” ... Mooney needs to give Braylon Heard the ball more. ... I’m going to my first Boardman home game since Tom Zetts beat St. Ignatius with a last-second bomb in 2002. Hopefully the Boardman band will play “Ants Marching” by Dave Matthews Band. (Hint, hint.)

scalzo@vindy.com.