Coach McCall

I was very saddened this weekend to hear about the death of Campbell Basketball Legend Fred McCall.  Coach meant so much to so many people and I was very honored to call him friend. I met Coach a day or two after I entered my freshman year in the Fall of 1987.

I was fortunate enough to have a job in Sports Information and it was there that Coach McCall entered my life and I was referred to as, “Taylor”.

Seeing Coach and the late E.P. Sauls drive up to the student center as I was leaving the Post Office became a morning ritual.  It didn’t take me long before I would go and sit with them in the snack bar and have some of the best conversations that I would ever have.  Mr. Sauls would take a ball point out and draw on a styrofoam cup and give it to students.  Both had a love for the university and the students whose lives were being altered by the great environment that these two envisionaries played an important role in developing.

Coach made a significant impact in so many ways on the University. The most notable being the Basketball Camp, which at the time was the nation’s oldest and largest.  It was through Coach McCall that I got to meet my childhood hero Coach John Wooden, a friendship that is still present today.

When in college I worked as the News & Observer covering Prep Sports. It seemed like every gym that I went into-there was the McCall rebounder.  A adjustable device that held basketballs to develop rebounding-Coach McCall invented this item so many athletes learned rebounding technique because of this contribution.

In his later years I would always see Coach at a ballgame perched on the second row in tiny Carter Gym. He always wanted to know how things were in Sanford and always made sure that I was still supporting the University.

It is ironic that Carter Gym, which was the birthplace of the Basketball School and platform for many victories for Coach McCall completed its run this season and will no longer house competive basketball. A chapter is closed in the Campbell Athletic History. The chapter on Coach McCall’s life is now complete but both the Carter Dome and Coach McCall’s life have left me with some very indellible memories.

Thanks Coach….