When the clock strikes midnight to ring in 2026, one of LaVell Edwards’ first offensive linemen at BYU will check out of the lineup. Appropriately, Chris Crowe’s 49-year run as a teacher will end right where his education began — in Provo, minus the kind of surprise that shook his arrival.
Undersized in physique (6-foot-3, 230 pounds) but with super-sized determination, the offensive lineman from Tempe, Arizona, showed up on his 1972 recruiting trip eager to meet head coach Tommy Hudspeth and excited to watch Kresimir Cosic play at the Marriott Center.
One out of two isn’t bad.
Hudspeth resigned before the basketball game ended and Crowe never saw him. As the teen pondered his next move, he noticed a mood shift among the returning players.
“He didn’t need to remember me, and he had no reason to remember me, but I think that is one of the things that made him special because he was good to everybody.”
— Chris Crowe on LaVell Edwards
“Those guys were elated by the change. I thought, ‘Well, OK, that’s a good sign,” Crowe told the “Y’s Guys” podcast this week. “If the players love this new guy and are glad to see a change, then I may be stepping into a good situation.”
The following morning, Crowe and the other recruits met Edwards for the first time.
“He wasn’t anything like I thought a head coach (would be),” Crowe said. “He was open, welcoming and friendly. He didn’t seem nervous at all. He made it easy to like — not just BYU — but him.”
Coming out of McClintock High, the same program that produced Cougars All-American John Tait two decades later, Crowe’s suitors were limited.
“I only had two offers, Arizona and BYU,” he said. “I wasn’t a member of the Church when I was being recruited. I chose BYU because they were so horrible. I thought at least I’d have a chance to play when I got up there.”
Playing behind eventual BYU Hall of Fame inductee Brad Oates, Crowe’s playing time was limited on the offensive line. Instead, his skills were mostly relegated to special teams.
The block
Rarely does a player get both a dream come true and a nightmare to happen on the same play. For Crowe, that distinguishing moment arrived in the third quarter against Utah State in 1975.
As the Aggies attempted a punt from inside their own 10-yard line, Crowe broke through the line of scrimmage.
“Nobody blocked me. It just opened up, and I ran forward,” he said. “I didn’t know if I was going to get to the ball or not.”
After a few more steps, Crowe leaped into the air and blocked the punt with his left arm.
“Back in those days, you couldn’t advance a fumble, but you could advance a blocked kick,” he said. “Coach (Dave) Kragthorpe had us run drills all the time on the offensive line. He’d say, ‘Don’t be the idiot who tries to scoop and score and loses the ball! When the ball is on the ground, you cover it.’”
Leading 10-7 and with Kragthorpe’s words reverberating between his ears, Crowe did what he was trained to do — he covered it.
“I’m lying on the ball at the 2-yard line with nobody around me,” he said. “I still have nightmares about it. ‘Pick up the ball! Pick up the ball.’ I could have had a touchdown.”
Watching Todd Christensen catch a 4-yard pass from Gifford Nielsen four plays later was a dagger for the Aggies and a bit of a downer for Crowe. Even 50 years later, when he closes his eyes, Crowe can still see that ball on the ground — and the goal line just a few feet away.
LaVell remembers
After his BYU graduation, Crowe returned to McClintock High to coach and teach English while earning a master’s and doctoral degree at Arizona State. Whenever the Cougars showed up to take on the Sun Devils, he would show up too.
“I’m thinking, (LaVell’s) not going to remember me and then he would see me and say, ‘Hey, Chris! Hey, Elizabeth!’” Crowe said. “He’d ask about my parents because they had never joined the Church. All my life, he would remember stuff.”
When Crowe left BYU-Hawaii to accept a teaching job at BYU in 1993, Edwards remembered.
“My first year on the faculty, I got a little card from him in my campus mailbox saying, ‘Welcome to BYU!’ The (English) department was under fire in those days, so he made a crack about if I ever needed to escape, I could use his office,” Crowe said. “He didn’t need to remember me, and he had no reason to remember me, but I think that is one of the things that made him special because he was good to everybody.”
Dave McCann is a sportswriter and columnist for the Deseret News and is a play-by-play announcer and show host for BYUtv/ESPN+. He co-hosts “Y’s Guys” at ysguys.com and is the author of the children’s book “C is for Cougar,” available at deseretbook.com