Saying goodbye to Eddie Crowder

September 11, 2008 12:20 am

— • Former Sooner quarterback,
Colorado coach passes away
Staff & Wire Reports
Eddie Crowder, who helped lead Oklahoma to its first national championship and spent nearly 50 years as athletic director and mentor to generations of players, coaches and administrators at Colorado, died Tuesday night from complications of leukemia. He was 77.
Crowder, who played quarterback, running back and safety at OU under Bud Wilkinson from 1950-52, was a member of the Sooners’ national championship team in 1950.
He spent 11 seasons, 1963-73, at Colorado and went 67-49-2.
“He was one heckuva quarterback and an excellent leader,” former teammate J.D. Roberts said. “Eddie was so confident. We knew that when he called a play, it was the only play to run. He had an excellent grasp of the game.”
His leadership is the one thing former teammates praised over and over upon learning his death.
“Everybody liked Eddie,” said Claude Arnold, who was the quarterback of the 1950 squad. “He was a great player and a great leader, and all of the players from that era, Billy Vessels, Buck McPhail and all the rest, thought so much of Eddie. He just had such a dynamic personality and was so much fun to be around. I can’t say enough good things about him.”
Crowder’s grasp of the game was evident. He spent seven seasons as an assistant under Wilkinson at OU before becoming Colorado’s head coach in 1963. He spent 11 seasons as head coach. He was named the school’s athletic director in 1965 and remained in that position until stepping down in 1977.
Current Colorado athletic director Mike Bohn said the school lost “a tremendous leader, coach, mentor and friend.”
“He always seemed to be there at the right time and the right place with the right message whether it was for (current football coach) Dan Hawkins or myself,” Bohn said. “He was the foundation of our program. It’s a tough day for us all.”
Crowder, who had beaten cancer several years ago, died with his family by his side at Exampla Health Center in Lafayette after checking into the hospital Monday with respiratory problems, the university said.
Funeral plans were pending and the school was working on recognition programs for Crowder at the team’s next home game, Sept. 18 against West Virginia.
A memorial is planned on campus this weekend.
CU Chancellor Bud Peterson, a former Kansas State receiver who played against the Buffaloes in Crowder’s last game as coach at Colorado, said Crowder “helped me greatly in understanding the Colorado sports landscape. I will miss his sage advice, his enthusiasm and his love of all things CU, as will our entire community.”
Crowder turned around a moribund Buffaloes program, compiling a 63-33-2 record after two years of rebuilding. One of his biggest wins came in 1970, when the Buffs ended Penn State’s 31-game unbeaten streak. His best season came in 1971, when the Buffaloes went 10-2 and finished third in the national polls behind fellow Big 8 conference members Nebraska and Oklahoma.
“College football has lost one of the great ones,” former broadcaster Keith Jackson said. “I had a lot of fun with Eddie, whether it was talking football or life. And he knew both well.”
In an era known for dictatorial coaches stomping up and down the sideline, Crowder was the exception, hardly ever raising his voice.
“Eddie got a lot done with a very even temper,” Jackson said. “He always gave me the feeling that if you don’t go out and give your best, you’re selling out. If the kids didn’t go out and play their hardest, they would have offended him. That was the way he controlled his team. He wasn’t a shouter, a yeller or a screamer.”
Several members of his coaching staff went on to have successful head coaching careers themselves, including Jim Mora, Don James and Les Steckel.
Born Aug. 26, 1931, in Arkansas City, Kan., Crowder was raised in Muskogee, where he won a state championship in 1949. He was a backup quarterback on OU’s first national championship team in 1950 and guided the Sooners to a 16-3-1 mark as a starter in 1951-52.
After a senior season in which he earned All-America honors, Crowder was drafted by the New York Giants in 1953 but declined because of a nerve problem in his throwing arm.
He served in the Army Corps of Engineers, playing quarterback on the Fort Hood team in ’53 and serving as a backfield coach in ’54 before returning to Oklahoma and earning his bachelor’s degree in 1955. Colorado athletic director Harry Carlson hired him to coach the Buffaloes in 1963, when Crowder was 31.
Crowder is survived by his wife, Kate, two children, two stepchildren and three grandchildren.

Copyright © 1999-2008 cnhi, inc.