By Alex Nicoll

Editor-in-Chief

@NicollMac

In 2004, Coppell, a rather unknown Class 5A school at the time, scored the hiring of a lifetime. Somehow they attracted the head football coach from powerhouse Plano East High School, which was the pinnacle of Texas Class 5A football, to become the new Coppell ISD athletics director.

Eleven years later, Coppell will seek out another AD after John Crawford decided to close the doors on an illustrious 38 year career in education to enjoy retirement.

Let’s start from the beginning.

The 10th winningest coach in Texas high school football history according to Dave Campbell’s Texas Football with 189 wins is impressive enough but even more so when it turns out Crawford almost was never a coach at all.

Initially going to college at Stephen F. Austin State University to be an engineer, Crawford had a change of heart.

“I got further into college and taking classes I began to imagine what my daily life would look like as an engineer and I came to the realization that, that was not what I wanted to do on a daily basis,” Crawford said. “Through deductive reasoning I eliminated a number of careers I was not interested in and then settled on teaching and coaching.”

Starting out getting an assistant coaching job at Pineland West Sabine in east Texas, Crawford’s coaching career almost came to a halt again.

This time it was to take over the family business.

When his father died, Crawford and his brother came back to Carthage, Texas to run his dad’s propane business. Yet that wouldn’t keep him out of coaching for long as they sold the business and he came back to his true calling.

“[The job] solidified in my mind that I wanted to go back to teaching and coaching,” Crawford said. “I’ve never regretted it.”

Crawford started his head coaching career in 1983 at Lorena High School, a small Class 2A school in east Texas.

The first few years were what some would call a challenge. They won two games total in the first two years Crawford was there.

“We weren’t very good when we first started,” Crawford said.

But then things started to click. The third year the team won six games. Then the next season it was nine. Everything looked like it was moving in the right direction.

In 1987, it finally all came together. Crawford took his team to a 14-1-1 record and the Class 2A championship, beating Refugio High School, 8-7. Two years later they made it back to the championship but fell to Graviton High School, 20-13.

“It changed my life forever, winning the state championship and then going and playing for it again,” Crawford said. “I always thought I would be successful but until it actually happened for me I knew, then that the things we were doing was the right way for us to be doing things.”

Winning a championship and making another has its perks. Accolades come in, people recognize your name and you are put on the radar for future career advancement.

“It afforded me other opportunities for other jobs and ultimately landed me in Coppell as the athletic director,” Crawford said.

After his second championship season, Crawford landed in Tatum, Texas to become the head coach and athletics director Class 3A Tatum High School in 1990. He was moving up in the world of high school football.

Tatum was his longest stop as a head coach and he even took them to the 1996 Class 3A state championship against Sealy High School but lost 36-27.

Moving is difficult for any person, but making your wife and three boys move can be strenuous all relationships.

“They usually weren’t very happy with dad because we would move schools to go to another,” Crawford said.

Luckily Crawford’s sons, James, 38, and Jason, 36, only had to attend two schools with both graduating from Tatum. Jerod, the youngest and former assistant coach at Aledo High School from 2008-2013, graduated from Burleson.

“At first I didn’t like it but looking back on it I realize he did the right thing for me and for us,” Jerod said. “I really appreciate all the experiences. For me it was an easy transition for going to college.

A decade later, he moved on to take the head coaching and athletics director spot at Burleson High School for two years. This was his last stop before he was hired to be the head coach at Plano East High School, the zenith of Texas high school football.

It could not get any better than this Crawford thought.

“Honestly I thought that would be my last stop,” Crawford said. “It was the largest high school in the state of Texas and you kind of think ‘Where can I go from here?’”

Even coaches he hired at Coppell knew of him at his time at Plano East and even before.

“I knew well of him,” former Coppell head football coach and current Dripping Springs High School football coach Joe McBride said. “He won everywhere he went.”

He had it all: a state championship, the recognition that comes with it and the top high school football coaching job in the state.

But then he got a phone call from Dr. Jeff Turner, former Coppell Independent School District superintendent, to become the athletics director for Coppell. Turner and Crawford already had a past and this was the second time he hired Crawford to be an athletics director of his school district. Turner and Crawford worked at Burleson at the same time and both left initially at the same time with Crawford going to Plano East and Turner at Coppell.

“I probably changed my mind 100 times during the course of that decision making,” Crawford said.

As an athletics director only, the transition was difficult for Crawford. Being a head coach, he got to interact with players everyday and got to be in the limelight of fans.

“It was a very difficult transition, I loved coaching and was very passionate about it,” Crawford said. “Not having that close association with student athletes and my relationship now with our coaches is far different than what I had with my coaching staff when I was a head football coach. When you are in the trenches so to speak, side-by-side everyday you just have a special bond together.”

“It took me awhile to not be in front of the athletes everyday,” Crawford said.

At Coppell, his role became somewhat different.

“He was a behind-the-scenes kind of guy,” McBride said. “He really cared about everything, every sport, every competition.”

Even if his job was not the same, his personality remained on constant display with everybody he interacted with.

“Working with Coach Crawford was a joy because he always cared about his coaches and what was going on in their lives,” McBride said. “His personality was so supportive and he wanted you to have the very best and not have to worry about anything. He really served us.”

“You always knew with Coach Crawford that he would support you, stand behind you and advocate for you.”

That support helped lead Coppell to four state titles during his tenure: 2009 Class 5A girls soccer, 2011 and 2012 Class 5A volleyball and 2012 Class 5A boys soccer.

When asked about his role in this titles, he smiled and responded humbly that he just wished he contributed to the success in a “small way”.

Coaching for almost four decades, his influence has impacted the lives of former players, fans, colleagues and, most importantly, those close to home.

“Absolutely,” Jerod said when asked if his father was a role model for him. “I saw the relationship he had with former players and the influence he had not just on me but on my friends’ lives and it pushed me into that environment. He was most absolutely the main influence for me in that aspect.”

Ask around and everybody says the same thing about Crawford. That he was more focused on helping coaches build successful programs than  furthering his own agenda, that he was fair to all sports, that he was always willing to talk about anything and everything that crossed your mind. Loyalty, humility, selflessness: that is John Crawford’s legacy at Coppell High School.

But for now, Crawford is content with finishing out the school year and hanging up his duties and responsibilities for a 9-iron and his grandkids.

“It’s time for me to move on.”