Inaugural Louis Crews Classic to Honor All-Time Coach
SWAC.org
Sept. 9, 2010
Huntsville, Ala. -
By Roscoe Nance
A heightened sense of excitement is in the air for Alabama A&M’s home opener Saturday against Central State (Ohio) in the inaugural Louis Crews Classic. The game honors one of the Bulldogs’ legendary coaches, whose 93-53-3 record in 16 seasons makes him No. 1 in school history in victories and second in winning percentage (.624) behind only current A&M coach Anthony Jones (.642). A week of activities surrounds the game, which coincides with the 100th anniversary of Alabama A&M football.
“This is a way to honor a great man and set the tone for the season,’’ Alabama A&M Director of Athletics Betty Austin said.
More than 100 of Crews’ former players are expected to attend the game, which will be played at the 22,000-seat stadium that bears his name.
Crews, a standout running back for the Bulldogs who scored the first touchdown in the Magic City Classic in 1940, is widely credited with setting the tone for Alabama A&M’s football program when he became coach in 1960. The Bulldogs were 7-1 in Crews’ first season after going 1-7 the previous year. He went on to lead the Bulldogs to four SIAC championships and the only undefeated season in school history with an 8-0 record in 1963.
“Before he came, A&M was easy to beat,’’ former Alabama State player and coach Jim Parker. “A&M was a big game for us, but they were just mundane until Crews got there. All that they are doing in his honor is well justified.’’
Crews, who died in 2005, was hailed as one of the great offensive coaches and considered to be ahead of his time. He is most noted for his penchant for passing and trap plays.
“He was on the cutting edge,’’ says SWAC Hall of Famer Doug Porter, who coached at Mississippi Valley State and later at Fort Valley State and was friends with Crews. “A lot of us were running and would pass on third down. He’d pass on first down. That was not the norm at that time. He was very innovative. His understanding of the passing game was ahead of his time.’’
Stan Lomax, who coached at Fort Valley State, recalls an athletic director from another school telling him before his first game against Crews and the Bulldogs, that Alabama A&M would be well-coached.
“Indeed he was correct,’’ Lomax says. “He was a terrific coach. He was very impressive. Their line play was always at an unusually high level.’’
Crews bedeviled opponents with a passing scheme called the third man out. It simply involved including a running back in the pass patterns with the two ends, which was virtually unheard of at the time.
“He was a master of including a running back in the pass offense,’’ Lomax says. “We had terrific problems. It was a phase of the game that was being developed at that time. He just continuously utilized the third man out. It was a potent weapon against us.’’
Seeing the success Crews had using the third man out, Lomax made it a part of Fort Valley State’s offense.
Current Alabama A&M associate head coach and defensive coordinator Brawnski Towns was a defensive back for the Bulldogs from 1965-69 and an assistant coach from 1971-75 and has been back at his alma mater since 1984. He recalls Crews using four-wide receiver sets, which are commonplace nowadays, as early as his freshman season.
Later, Crews developed what he called the L offense, which featured the fullback and tailback lined up behind tackle and a wingback and split end set to the opposite side of the formation.
“He was probably an offensive genius,’’ Towns says. “He was way before his time. He just wanted to outscore everybody, and most of the time he did.’’
Crews’ wide open offensive philosophy was a breath of fresh air for Bulldogs fans, who had seen their team score 20 or more points just 10 times in the 10 seasons prior to him becoming coach. In 1963, the Bulldogs didn’t score fewer than 20 points in any game en route to their 8-0 record and averaged 32.2 points a game.
Crews had an affinity for mobile offensive linemen, an essential for trap plays that were the foundation of the Bulldogs’ running game. Towns says Crews devised a number of exotic schemes that included trapping linebackers and the tight end trapping the nose guard, which Washington Redskins have used extensively in recent years.
Opponents resorted to lining up their defensive linemen a yard off the line of scrimmage and having them read the play rather than attacking to counter the Bulldogs’ traps, Towns says. The Dallas Cowboys adopted a similar scheme in the mid-60s and called it the Flex Defense.
Erskine Valrie, a wide receiver for the Bulldogs from 1964-66, says playing for Crews was a joy because he taught players a part of the game they never learned in high school.
“He was light-hearted, but he made you work hard,’’ Valrie says, adding that Crews was not above running a play 10 times in practice in order to get it right. “He was a task master in terms of getting it right. He made you do it as long as it took to get it right.’’
Valrie says Crews had an uncanny ability to see everything and everybody on the practice even though he appeared not to be watching.
“He would be coaching on one end of the field and all of a sudden he would holler, ‘I see you over there loafing,’’’ Valrie says. “You never knew when he was looking.’’
The Bulldogs under Crews would end practice with his version of the suicide drill. He would have the team sprint back and forth to a ditch at the end of the practice field, a distance of about 60 yards. When Crews shouted “to the ditch and back,’’ those were the five dirtiest words he could have spoken.
This Saturday’s game between the Bulldogs, who are coming off a disappointing opening loss to Tennessee State, and Central State culminates a week of activities that are part of the tribute to Crews that began Sunday evening with a worship service. Other activities included an exhibit at the State Black Archives honoring Crews’ legacy, a breakfast that provided members of the Huntsville business community an opportunity to visit with coaches, ninth-grade students from Butler High School spending the day on campus while participating in the Hill Project to help boost the school’s graduation rate, a concert featuring Frankie Beverly and Maze, and pre-game showing featuring the Central State and Alabama A&M bands, as well as local high school bands.
“We want to involve the entire community,’’ Austin said.
The Lewis Crews Classic is the brainchild of Judge M. Lynn Sherrod, a member of the Alabama A&M Board of Trustees, who first proposed the game two years ago as a way to honor Crews and boost revenue for the athletic department.
Austin says it’s fitting for the community to be a part of the salute to Crews because of his far-reaching influence. In addition to coaching football, he also was a teacher in the Physical Education Department and touched the lives of numerous non-athletes.
“You couldn’t help but love him,’’ said Austin, who was a student in Crews’ classes. “Although you were young, you realized he was pushing you. He was hardcore, let’s get it done, don’t play around. He wanted you to be successful. He had a love for people in general.’’