Fred Crawford (American football)
No. 32 Duke Blue Devils | |
Date of birth | July 27, 1910 |
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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
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Career stats | |
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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
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- ↑ North Carolina, Birth Indexes, 1800-2000 [database on-line].
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- Pages with reference errors
- 1910 births
- 1974 deaths
- All-American college football players
- American football tackles
- Chicago Bears players
- College Football Hall of Fame inductees
- Duke Blue Devils football players
- People from Waynesville, North Carolina
- All-Southern college football players
- Players of American football from North Carolina
- American football ends
- United States Air Force personnel of World War II