JAMES FRANCIS "SOUP" CAMPBELL was born on December 24, 1897 in Homestead, Pennsylvania. He appears to have learned to play basketball, as fellow Homestead natives, Jackie Adams and Roy Steele, under the tutelage of famed 23rd Street Wanders’ star Sandy Shields at the Homestead YMCA. Steele and Adams were teammates for nine pro seasons, the last five of which were in Camden, New Jersey. Familiarity allowed Adams and Steele to develop the most sophisticated offense in the early years of professional basketball. Season after season, Steele and Adams refined their offensive system which was based on rapid ball movement and an intricate short passing game. When Adams retired in 1918, Steele assumed Adams’ role as team leader of Camden’s powerful offense. Steele formed a new partnership with Soup Campbell, a young player from Homestead, which created the most formable scoring duo in the league. The team enjoyed tremendous post-war success winning the 1919-20 EBL championship and compiled a 112-37 record in three and half seasons before the demise of the league in January of 1923.

Soup Cambell joined the Camden club, which alternately was known as the Alphas, Skeeters, and Camden Crusaders of the Eastern Basket Ball League in time for the 1919-1920 season. The team was owned by Camden veterinarian Dr. Charles B. Helm and former Camden County Sheriff W. Penn Corson. Other team members included Neil Deighan amd his brother Rich Deighan, Eddie Ferat, Sam Lennox, Roy Steele, Dave Kerr, and Joe Hyde. 

Soup Campbell was one of pro basketball’s top offensive stars in the early 1920s. Campbell was a fine set shooter, but speed and agility were the keys to his game. He was considered one of the best of the “two-handed dribblers” of the era. Campbell’s greatest success came early in his pro basketball career. In his first full pro season,  he led Camden to the Eastern League championship and was the league’s leading scorer. He won two more EBL scoring titles in 1922 and 1923. He starred in the Metropolitan League for three seasons before he joined the American Basketball League in 1925. Campbell played for five ABL teams during the next four seasons. During the later years of his career, Campbell was no longer among the top echelon of scorers, but remained valuable as a floor leader and strategist.. 

James Campbell married Gladys Frick in 1924. A son, James F. Campbell Jr., was born in Camden on February 25, 1925. Two more children followed by 1930, William A. Campbell and Shirley E. Campbell. The April 1930 Census shows the family living at 111 Terrace Avenue in East Camden. The 1928 and 1929 City Directory shows him involved with a bar at 28 Haddon Avenue, with Neil Deighan. By 1931 James Campbell was then the proprietor of a restaurant, the Marmon Cafe, at 821 Market Street. 

On July 25, 1930 James Campbell's basketball career came to an abrupt end when he was involved in an automobile accident on the Admiral Wilson Boulevard in Pennsauken, New Jersey, just outside of Camden's city limits. Both of his sons were also injured in the crash. James Campbell was awarded $15,000 damages, which were reduced to $12,000 in June of 1932. He appeared in three games in the 1932-1933 season, but time and injury had taken its toll and that was the end of his basketball career.

Sadly, James and Gladys Campbell divorced during the 1930s, and apparently his business ventures outside of sports did not do well either. The 1940 Census shows Mrs. Campbell living with her children and mother at 229 Ivins Avenue in Delaware Township (present-day Cherry Hill), New Jersey. James Campbell appears to have been living in Camden, renting a room at the home of Charles J. and Lydia Davidson of 319 North 2nd Street. The Census states that James Campbell, oddly enough, was working in the cannery at Campbell Soup. 

James "Soup" Campbell died on March 5, 1942 in Camden, New Jersey.