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Macc Junior<\/strong><\/p>\n It isn\u2019t easy growing up in the shadow of a legend, and there are few more legendary than Earl McCullouch. The Long Beach Poly football star went on to an All-American career at LBCC and USC, and would eventually become the NFL Rookie of the Year with the Detroit Lions in 1968, playing seven seasons in the league. If his football exploits weren\u2019t enough, McCullouch was a standout on the track as well, setting two national high school records and running the leadoff leg on USC\u2019s world record 4×110 relay.<\/p>\n McCullouch was such a world-class athlete that he had to turn down a spot on the Olympic team\u2014he would have been a gold medal favorite in the sprint hurdles\u2014to pursue his football career because the NFL paid and the national track team didn\u2019t. Because McCullouch came from an era when athletes didn\u2019t live in gated communities, he and his wife, Peggy, raised their family in Long Beach, and his kids grew up competing on the same fields and tracks that he did.<\/p>\n Earl McCullouch Jr. got his father\u2019s name, but not his world-class talent.<\/p>\n \u201cIt was fun growing up in Long Beach,\u201d said McCullouch Jr. \u201cEverywhere I went, everyone knew about my dad. Me being \u2018Junior,\u2019 every year I had coaches asking me if I\u2019m trying out. I had to deal with that a lot.\u201d<\/p>\n McCullouch Jr. ran track and played a year of basketball at Poly, missing out on football because he didn\u2019t have the grades. After graduating from Poly in \u201895, he played football at Golden West and was a standout there, going on to play for the Long Beach Lions, a semi-pro team; McCullouch helped lead the Lions to their first championship.<\/p>\n By 2000, McCullouch Jr. had found a job working for the Long Beach Unified School District at Mary Butler Middle School, and soon after he started coaching the school\u2019s athletic teams, something he initially did for fun but would eventually realize was his calling.<\/p>\n \u2018Where I\u2019m Supposed to Be\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n McCullouch Jr. coached at Butler for several years, then moved with virtually the entire staff to Nelson Academy when it opened seven years ago. McCullouch Jr. works as a recreation leader, campus security officer and coaches four of school’s teams: football, boys\u2019 and girls\u2019 track and boys\u2019 soccer.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s a great age group to work with,\u201d he said. \u201cA lot of them really want to learn and at our school, most of our kids don\u2019t play club sports or sports outside of school. I\u2019m just looking at PE classes for kids that can throw or kids that can run. When we can beat a team like Hughes, that feels so good; most of their kids are in clubs. When we\u2019ve been able to beat powerhouses like that it feels like the Raptors beating the Warriors.\u201d<\/p>\n One of the reasons Long Beach has had such a great history of high school sports is the LBUSD\u2019s organized middle school sports program, and coaches who\u2019ve decided to dedicate their time to coaching at that level. McCullouch Jr. is one of those coaches who believes there\u2019s something special about coaching at the 6th to 8th grade level.<\/p>\n \u201cThese kids really need male role models and mentors in their lives, a lot of them don\u2019t have father figures around,\u201d he said. \u201cI think you can have a bigger impact on kids at this level. I coached at Cabrillo for a year, and it wasn\u2019t for me, this is where I\u2019m supposed to be.\u201d<\/p>\n Peterson has been the principal at Butler and Nelson, working with McCullouch Jr. for nine years. She said in that time, she\u2019s never seen anyone else as dedicated to students as the man she affectionately refers to as \u201cCoach.\u201d McCullouch Jr. implemented high school-level grade requirements for his athletes, who have to have a 2.0 GPA to compete.<\/p>\n \u201cHe establishes a relationship with every single kid he coaches,\u201d said Peterson. \u201cThe kids come back to see him because when they\u2019re here, he pulls kids aside and he mentors them. There\u2019s something unique about his spirit. As long as you\u2019re with Coach, you\u2019ll never go hungry, you\u2019ll never go without clothes or shoes.\u201d<\/p>\n \u2018The Best Year Ever\u2019<\/strong><\/p>\n Administrators decided last summer that 2018-19 was going to be a special year at Nelson.<\/p>\n \u201cWe declared in August that this was going to be the best school year ever,\u201d said Peterson. \u201cWe posted that all around the school. And every time Coach and his scholars won a championship he\u2019d say, \u2018Told you Ms. P, best year ever.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n The school had won only a few championships in its history, but this year won three, claiming titles in football, as well as both track programs\u2014the football and girls\u2019 track teams had never won one before. At the Long Beach Century Club\u2019s All-City Middle School Banquet, all the Nelson championships teams were recognized, with McCullouch Jr. and Peterson appearing on stage with the winning athletes. When McCullouch Jr.\u2019s name was announced, the packed house of 750 at the Grand roared.<\/p>\n At the end of the night, Nelson was announced as having won the award for the best Division 2 middle school sports program in the city, and the kids and parents screamed in celebration.<\/p>\n \u201cWe\u2019ve been putting the banquet on for 31 years and that\u2019s as loud as it\u2019s ever been,\u201d said Keith Hansen, who organized the event this year.<\/p>\n Among those in the audience cheering were McCullouch Jr.\u2019s parents, both of whom have attended more than enough athletic banquets for one lifetime, but who couldn\u2019t miss their son being recognized alongside his athletes.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m so happy he\u2019s found a way to give back to Long Beach,\u201d said McCullouch. \u201cI know it means a lot to him.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHearing everyone cheer like that, it really set in what a special year it was,\u201d said McCullouch Jr. More than the applause or the championships, he said his satisfaction comes from having found the place where he can best serve.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is my calling,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is my purpose in life. To give back to the community I was raised in. I couldn\u2019t be in the NFL like my dad, I wasn\u2019t a star. But I watched him coaching when I was growing up, and I knew I could do that. Give back to the youth, try to keep them out of the streets. We might win two or three championships, but if I can keep two or three kids away from gangs every year, if I can save two or three lives every year, think of the impact that can have.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" He’s not only forcing Nelson Academy to buy a bigger trophy case, he\u2019s mentoring kids in the heart of the city.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":250,"featured_media":17037,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"newspack_sponsor_sponsorship_scope":"","newspack_sponsor_native_byline_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_native_category_display":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_style":"inherit","newspack_sponsor_underwriter_placement":"inherit","inline_featured_image":false,"newspack_ads_suppress_ads":false,"newspack_popups_has_disabled_popups":"","pmpro_default_level":0,"_":"","_author_alias":"","cap-aim":"","cap-description":"","cap-display_name":"","cap-first_name":"","cap-jabber":"","cap-last_name":"","cap-linked_account":"","cap-newspack_employer":"","cap-newspack_job_title":"","cap-newspack_phone_number":"","cap-newspack_role":"","cap-user_email":"","cap-user_login":"","cap-website":"","cap-yahooim":"","newspack_article_summary":"","newspack_email_html":"","newspack_email_type":"","newspack_featured_image_position":"","newspack_hide_page_title":"","newspack_hide_updated_date":false,"newspack_post_subtitle":"","newspack_show_share_buttons":"","newspack_sponsor_byline_prefix":"","newspack_sponsor_disclaimer_override":"","newspack_sponsor_flag_override":"","newspack_sponsor_only_direct":"","newspack_sponsor_url":"","footnotes":"","newspack_article_summary_title":"Overview:","newspack_show_updated_date":false},"categories":[3],"tags":[197],"newspack_spnsrs_tax":[],"coauthors":[199],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-live.lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5991"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-live.lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-live.lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-live.lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/250"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-live.lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5991"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/staging-live.lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5991\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-live.lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17037"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/staging-live.lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5991"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-live.lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5991"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-live.lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5991"},{"taxonomy":"newspack_spnsrs_tax","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-live.lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newspack_spnsrs_tax?post=5991"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/staging-live.lbpost.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/coauthors?post=5991"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/staging-live.lbpost.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/Nelson-2.jpg\")