Harry McCall was doing his job as head football coach of the Aiken Falcons.
No, McCall wasn't running a practice or a film session. He was deep in spreadsheets and numbers, calculating a player's grade point average.
McCall, Aiken athletic director Paul Brownfield and a player, Ja'Quan Bennett, got together to manually go through transcripts and find the GPA numbers needed to confirm Bennett was eligible to play collegiately at Division I Arkansas-Pine Bluff.
"We took that whole day of going, 'Ok, we can use that math. We can use that science. We can use that natural science. We can use that history class. We can't use that elective; that doesn't count.' We single-handedly counted up those letter grades, averaging them out and coming up with a GPA," McCall said.
Now, McCall and all other Cincinnati Public Schools coaches, administrators and athletes will have a partner in keeping academic eligibility clear and easily communicated.
