Colorado University Athletics

One Last Folsom Saturday For Eddie

 

BOULDER ? An estimated 1,000 people, including about 100 former players, gathered Saturday afternoon at Folsom Field to celebrate the life of Eddie Crowder, the longtime University of Colorado football coach and athletic director who passed away last Tuesday (Sept. 9) at the age of 77.

 

Crowder, who coached the Buffaloes from 1963-73 and to heights never before reached and who served as the school’s athletic director for 20 years (1965-84) died from complications due to leukemia.

 

Those who helped eulogize Crowder included former CU head coach Bill McCartney, former Buffs Bobby Anderson and John Stavely, former CU regent Jerry Rutledge, former grad assistant coach and personal lawyer Steve Ehrhart, and Crowder’s daughter, Carol. 

 

Anderson commented that it was “perfect weather for a game day, just what Eddie loved.”  Crowder’s desire was to have the service where people could see both the field and the mountains, and CU’s club seating area on the east side of Folsom served as the perfect venue to grant that wish.  With temperatures in the 70s and the sun gleaning off the Flatirons and light cloud coverage over the Continental Divide, it could not have been better.

 

Rutledge echoed that sentiment, noting that “Eddie died peacefully.  And look at today, a beautiful day for football.  There’s a hurricane practically everywhere else but it’s peaceful here.”

 

The field was painted as if it was game day, and featured the salute to the man who roames its sidelines for 11 seasons with a script Eddie on either side of the field.

 

Anderson said that, “Eddie had a great way of calming stressful situations” and cited how nervous he was when he was about to make his first start as a sophomore against Baylor in 1967.  Crowder went up and put his arm around him and said, “Bobby, you don’t have a problem with me starting a sophomore quarterback today, do you?”

 

Ehrhart made special reference to how Colorado football played a role in changing college football in the South, when Crowder’s full integrated CU team in 1969 defeated an all-white Alabama team in the Liberty Bowl.

 

All the speakers talked about Eddie as the person, with athletics woven in and out of their eulogies.  McCartney was the final speaker and talked about how Eddie had developed a relationship with Jesus Christ the last few years of his life.

 

The service closed with the Gatlin Brothers version of Amazing Grace, Crowder’s widow Kate saying a special thank you, and then the fight songs from Oklahoma, Crowder’s alma mater, and Colorado.

 

Kate had found a sticky note on Eddie's late son Robert's desk and told the gathering what it said, which was a quotation from Dr. Seuss: “Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.”

 

A Who’s Who list of people were in attendance, from CU’s first PGA Tour star Dale Douglass, longtime CU donor and International founder Jack Vickers and former Colorado Rockies owner Jerry McMorris to dozens of players from the Crowder Era at CU and five members of Crowder’s high school team, Muskogee (Okla.) Central.  Current CU athletic director Mike Bohn and football coach Dan Hawkins along with several staff members through the years also came to pay their respect to the man that had a hand in starting many of their careers.  CU chancellor Bud Peterson attended as did several former members of the Board of Regents.