Fred Crawford (American football)

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Fred Crawford
No. 32     Duke Blue Devils
FredCrawford.jpg
Date of birth July 27, 1910
Place of birth Waynesville, North Carolina
Date of death Script error: The function "death_date_and_age" does not exist.
Place of death Tallahassee, Florida
Career information
Position(s) T/E
Height 6 ft 2 in (188 cm)
Weight 190 lb (86 kg)
College Duke University
High school Waynesville Township High School
The McCallie School
Career history
As player
1932–33 Duke Blue Devils
1935 Chicago Bears
Career highlights and awards

Championships

Honors
Career stats

Frederick Eugene "Fred" Crawford (July 27, 1910 – March 5, 1974) was an American football player.

Early years

Fred Crawford was born on July 27, 1910 in Waynesville, North Carolina, the son of congressman William T. Crawford.[1][2] Fred attended both Tuscola High School and The McCallie School.[3]

Football

College

He played at tackle and end for Wallace Wade's Duke Blue Devils, selected All-Southern in 1932[4] and a consensus All-American in 1933.[5] Crawford was the first football player to gain first-team All-America honors from the state of North Carolina.[6][7] He was mainly responsible in 1933 for the defeat of the Tennessee Volunteers, that team's first loss in over two and a half seasons.[6] It caused Tennessee coach Bob Neyland to remark: "He gave the finest exhibition of tackle play I have ever seen."[8] Duke won the Southern Conference the same year, winning 9 straight until a loss at Georgia Tech knocked Duke out of contention for the Rose Bowl.[9]

Crawford was elected to the NC Sports Hall of Fame in 1964,[10] the College Football Hall of Fame in 1973, and the Duke Sports Hall of Fame in 1976.[11]

One description of Crawford's play said he was "a hell-for-leather, hard-hitting, hard-charging, fast-running juggernaut" who "covered punts like a run-away express'" and "chaged through the line like a lion going in for the kill.[12] Coach Wallace Wade called Crawford "the greatest lineman I ever saw."[13]

NFL

After a brief motion picture career,[14] Crawford played professionally for the Chicago Bears. He played just a year due to a lack of size for an interior line position[10] and a broken leg.[13] George Halas discovered Crawford could throw quite far indeed, and in a preseason game let him throw what was a completion to Ed Kawal that went 82 yards in the air.[15]

World War II

He served in the United States Air Force during World War II.[14]

Florida

After the war until the time of his death he was a State Motor Vehicle Department official in Florida.[6][14]

References

  1. ↑ North Carolina, Birth Indexes, 1800-2000 [database on-line].
  2. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  3. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  4. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  5. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  7. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  8. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  9. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  11. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  12. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 14.2 Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
  15. ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
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