Coach Charles Newell was an exceptional football coach and athletic director who spent 21 years in coaching leading programs at Kilmichael, Aberdeen, West Point, and Grenada. Charles hails from Clay County and was a three-year letterman in football, baseball, and basketball at West Point High. He played football and baseball at Northeast Junior College in Booneville and earned his degrees at Northeast and Mississippi State. Coach Newell started in the coaching profession in 1955 as head football coach and athletic director at Kilmichael. After one season, he left for Aberdeen High to work as an assistant football coach, head basketball coach, and administrator of the Aberdeen swimming pool. Charles left the profession briefly to become a salesman for Metropolitan Life out of Columbus but soon returned to coaching as an assistant football and head basketball coach at West Point. He soon took over the duties of athletic director while coaching the junior high team. In addition to his regular coaching and school duties, Coach Newell added a rigorous summer school schedule as summer recreation director at West Point. He was soon named head football coach and athletic director at West Point where he remained until 1970. In 1970, Charles was named athletic director, head football coach, and assistant principal at Grenada High. At Grenada, he supervised 800 students, 36 faculty members, and 9 coaches and never took summer breaks even though he retreated to Grenada Lake as park ranger. Coach Newell entered school administration full time as principal of Lee High in Columbus. In 1988, he retired from the Mississippi public school system, but he returned to the profession one last time as head football coach and baseball coach at Central Academy in Macon. In 1990, he entered private business as a sales representative for Bruckner’s photography which was still involved with many school activities. Overall, his football teams won 78 games, lost 62, and tied 3 times for a 55% winning margin. His 1964 West Point squad won the Little Ten Conference Championship. Charles served as an assistant coach in the 1977 Bernard Blackwell All-Star Football Classic. A longtime member of the MAC, Coach Newell also was a member of the board of directors of the Mississippi Association of Secondary School Principals and was active as member of the National Association of Secondary School Principals, and Red Red Rose. He was a loyal member of the Baptist Church, the Masonic Lodge, the Lee High Booster Club, the Grenada Golf Club, the West Point Jaycees, the West Point Golf Club, the Grenada Kiwanis Club, the past president and member of the Grenada Parks and Recreation Committee, the Green Oaks Golf Club, the Mississippi National Guard for 3 years, and a member of the Board of Trustees of East Mississippi Community College at Scooba.