OXFORD – A little more than a week before Christmas, Jake Long was just as busy as Santa Claus. Well, almost.

The point is that Long, who is the athletic academic coordinator at Northwest Mississippi Community College, had a lot on his plate. His goal was to help any NWCC athlete gain entrance into a four-year school by the time school started again in January.

The Fulton native was hired for the new position back in August. The role has been in the works for a while, since Ricky Woods was the former head coach of the Rangers. Long received a call from Woods' assistant, Jordan Lesley, who felt he might be interested in the position. He didn't hear anything else about the position until June. Then about six weeks later, Long was sitting down for an interview.

"There were some long, nerve-wracking nights wondering if it was ever going to happen," Long said. "I was in a good situation. I was the volunteer baseball assistant coach at Mercer University in Macon, Georgia. I left a good job to come to a good job."

Why Long's new job is so important locally is what he can help do for area kids. While NWCC, like all community colleges, have the ability to recruit the state and no set district, there are still several athletes from Oxford and Lafayette that become Rangers and Lady Rangers. His mission is to help monitor an athlete's progress in the classroom and then when it comes time to sign, be able to assist and guide.

It's been a needed position at NWCC, which has tried to regain footing in football the past couple of seasons. When athletes from EMCC can get out of school in a year and a half, that's a recruiting advantage. Long's hiring helps curb that advantage, and in the case of the Ole Miss Rebels, his work with linebacker Terry Caldwell ended up being a huge benefit.

"I handle all sports and that's really an undertaking, because there really is no groundwork for anything," Long said. "These sophomores that you're dealing with that are mid-year guys for football – I got here in August and their entire schedule had to be revamped just to make it possible. I don't want to say it wasn't a priority, but there had never been a demand for it."

With Long's help and support from head football coach Jack Wright and athletics director Bubba Skelton, NWCC now has a precedent to use moving forward.

At the time when mid-year candidates could start signing, there were three Rangers expected to meet the necessary requirements to do so. One of those was Caldwell, who played the 2014 season in Senatobia after coming from UNC-Charlotte. Caldwell ended up leading the state in tackles and as a result, he garnered an offer from Ole Miss.

"Part of the reason I got out of coaching was I knew I could have a better impact helping kids and that's something I've always wanted to do," Long said. "I'm the son of a baseball coach so that's where the first love of baseball came in. I did a lot of evaluating when I came and I knew I could help on a larger scale do what I'm doing now."

Soccer is another sport, which is growing in popularity; it could have some mid-year signees in the future, at least that's Long's goal.

In addition to helping the fall athletes graduate on time, Long is also responsible for making sure that all the basketball players at NWCC are eligible. Baseball, softball and golf are other sports he has his eye on. His job before the Christmas break was to make sure all the grades from exams were posted and checked in relation to eligibility. As a whole, Long was in charge of right around 200 athletes.

"I've never actually counted it, but I'm responsible for between 200 and 220," Long said. "The school has been extremely helpful in that the teachers, we communicate well with each other. They let me know things and that really helps because they know they can come to one central person now to potentially get a problem fixed or even congratulate student-athletes on what they've done. We've had some teachers let me know that some kids have knocked an assignment out of the park or been working hard in their subject and their test grade went up."

There are some headaches involved in the process just because there are some athletes that aren't able to grasp what needs to be accomplished. Still, there seems to be more pros than cons right now for Long, who felt like the next couple of years would lend to bigger improvements now that the position was in place.

"You're really going to look closely at the next four, five, six semesters at the grades and the graduation rates because that's the big thing," Long said. "The NCAA is making so many rule changes for Division I that we as a community college, we have to try and keep up, and even get ahead in some areas."

Long was planning to visit Ole Miss at the start of the year to try and see what NWCC had to do to get ahead.

"If you get ahead, you can close the gap on East Mississippi and hopefully kids will want to come here because we can put them out just like they're putting them out," Long said. "I probably heard from 40 to 50 different schools at all levels the last month leading up to signing day."

And when it comes to Caldwell, Long said he earned his grades and earned his scholarship to Ole Miss through his play on the field. Caldwell took 21 hours in the fall semester in order to gain entrance for the spring semester.

"That's tough to do, it really is," Long said. "That's mentally and physically taxing. You're talking about a kid who knew what he had to do. He gambled but it looks like it will pay off for him."