Anthony Campanella returns to Seabreeze High School as new athletic director
Anthony Campanella hopes to finish his career where it started.
The longtime baseball coach and assistant athletic director at Seabreeze High School is returning to the institution, this time as athletic director, he and principal Tucker Harris told the News-Journal Thursday.
Campanella will replace Brad Montgomery, who has served as AD since 2018. His official start date is July 1.
“It's definitely life-changing,” Campanella, 55, said. “It's something that is, No. 1, very important to me because of the pride of the school. But to go back home where I started, I was there for 27½ years. I started there and hopefully can finish there. I have a lot of big shoes to fill.”
In 29 years as head baseball coach at Seabreeze, Flagler Palm Coast and Deltona, Campanella compiled a 477-298 record.
He spent the 2022 and 2023 seasons at Deltona — where his Wolves claimed a district championship last week before falling in the regional quarterfinals — after three years in charge of the Bulldogs.
But the majority of his experience came at Seabreeze.
Campanella arrived at the school as a 23-year-old in 1992. He taught there. He coached baseball, winning seven district titles and advancing to three state final fours across 24 campaigns through 2017. And he spent the second half of his tenure as the assistant athletic director.
He worked mainly under local legend Jerry Chandler, who ran the Sandcrabs’ athletic department from 1974-2010.
“Learning his ways of communication and relationships with people, I've always remembered that,” Campanella said. “He was always a mentor to me. I'm super happy and super proud for that.”
Harris said Campanella was his first call. He mentioned Campanella’s proximity to Chandler as the “icing on the cake.”
Other reasons?
“It was him because you can't find anybody with 20-plus years (of athletic department experience, especially at Seabreeze) who understands Ormond is different,” Harris said. “Ormond, like any city, has its pros and cons. With that, you have to be a certain person to be able to manage all of it here. He's shown he can do that.”
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Campanella lives in Ormond Beach. With the new gig, his commute to work will shorten from 35 minutes to five.
He does not plan to teach classes or coach at Seabreeze. He will tend exclusively to athletic director duties.
“The big thing for me is getting back and getting those relationships back with the community, the great people of Ormond Beach, the students, the players,” Campanella said. “That's huge for me — building relationships throughout the community and with the players is something that I want to bring back to Seabreeze High School.”
He will continue as the coach of his Orlando Scorpions travel ball team this summer. After that, he’ll be back to roaming familiar hallways and fields.
“It meant a lot to be able to get him back home,” Harris said, “and get him back in red.”
This article originally appeared on The Daytona Beach News-Journal: Seabreeze hires Deltona coach Anthony Campanella as athletic director
