Man I could not get the field calculator to work, I kept getting that I have a syntax error.
I ended up just using the python window with updatecursor.
import arcpy
fc = "layer"
with arcpy.da.UpdateCursor(fc,["SC","SC2"]) as cursor:
for row in cursor:
if row[0] not in (None, "", " "):
if row [0] == "GR":
row [1]= "GRAIN"
elif row [0] == "WR":
row [1] = "WRITE"
elif row [0] == "PL":
row [1] = "PLACE"
cursor.updateRow(row)
else:
pass