John David Crow: Heisman Trophy Winner and Texas A&M Legend (1935–2015)

John David Crow, Heisman Trophy-winning football player, coach, and athletics administrator, was born on July 8, 1935, in Marion, Louisiana, to David Harry Crow, a paper mill worker, and Velma (Jenkins) Crow. When he was born, a midwife struggled to remove the umbilical cord around Crow’s neck, which resulted in nerve damage that paralyzed the left side of his face. Crow grew up in Springhill, Louisiana, where he excelled in football, basketball, and track at Springhill High School. Crow, a running back, helped the football team win the state title in 1952, and he rushed for 1,366 yards on 84 carries in 1953. Coach Paul “Bear” Bryant, along with assistant coach Elmer Smith, recruited Crow to attend the Agricultural and Mechanical College of Texas (now Texas A&M University) in 1954.

Bryant had come to Texas A&M to revive a struggling football program. He needed to learn who could play to his demanding standards. In September 1954, before his first football season began, Bryant took two busloads of Aggie football players to Junction, Texas, for a grueling ten-day training camp. Many players quit amidst the heat and tough conditions. Those players who stuck it out, later called the “Junction Boys,” were the heart of a Bryant-led, revitalized Aggie football program. Crow became part of that success, though as a freshman he was ineligible to play in 1954 and therefore did not participate in the Junction training camp.

The Aggies won only one game in Bryant’s first season and finished 1–9. It was the only losing season in Bryant’s thirty-eight-year coaching career. The team turned around in 1955, Crow’s sophomore year, and Texas A&M finished with a 7–2–1 record for its first winning season since 1951. In Crow’s junior season, 1956, the Aggies finished with a 9–0–1 record and won their first Southwest Conference title since 1941.

In Crow’s senior season, 1957, the Aggies finished with an 8–3 record. Crow was known for a tough, physical running style and that season rushed for 562 yards and six touchdowns. Also a defensive player, he got five interceptions. He was awarded the Heisman Trophy, becoming the first Texas A&M player, and only player for Bryant, to receive the honor.

When Bryant retired from coaching in 1982, he stated, “John David Crow was the finest player I ever coached. Watching film on him was like watching a grown man play with boys.” Regarding Bryant’s tough coaching style, Crow later commented that he “wasn’t any tougher than my dad.”

Crow graduated from Texas A&M with a business administration degree in 1958. He was named to the 1957 American Peoples Encyclopedia Scholastic All-America Team. He was also named to Who’s Who in American Colleges and Universities.

Crow’s football success continued as a professional. The Chicago Cardinals (who moved to St. Louis in 1960; present-day Arizona Cardinals) selected him with the second overall pick in the 1958 NFL draft. He played eleven NFL seasons for the Cardinals (1958–64) and the San Francisco 49ers (1965–68) and was a team captain on both teams. As of 2024 he held the Cardinals team record for longest run from scrimmage, scoring on an eighty-three-yard run against Washington in a 1958 game. Overall, he was a four-time Pro Bowl selection and was named to the All-Pro team of the 1960s. Playing the halfback position for the majority of his professional career, he rushed a total of 4,963 yards and scored 38 touchdowns in 125 games.

After his playing days ended, Crow joined Bear Bryant’s University of Alabama staff as an assistant coach. He served as an assistant coach with two NFL teams, the Cleveland Browns (1972–73) and San Diego Chargers (1974–75), before joining Northeast Louisiana University (today the University of Louisiana Monroe) as head coach and athletics director. In 1983 Texas A&M football coach and athletics director Jackie Sherrill brought Crow back to serve as associate athletics director. In late 1988 Crow became athletics director and served until 1993. His tenure included the hiring of successful A&M head football coach R. C. Slocum. From 1993 until his retirement in 2001 he served as director of athletics development. He considered himself “fortunate to have never really had to divorce myself from football.”

Among Crow’s honors were enshrinement in the Texas A&M Athletic Hall of Fame (1968), National Football Foundation Hall of Fame (1976), Louisiana Sports Hall of Fame (1976), and the Texas Sports Hall of Fame (1982). He was named an A&M Distinguished Alumnus in 2004. That same year he received the Doak Walker Legends Award. A statue of Crow was dedicated in front of A&M’s Bright Football Complex on October 15, 2010. It was moved near the north end of Kyle Field, where the Aggies play their home games, in 2015. Crow was also honored by the Aggies as an SEC Legend at the 2012 SEC Championship game.

Crow married his high school sweetheart, Carolyn Ann Gilliam, on July 2, 1954, before enrolling at Texas A&M. They had three children: John David Jr., Annalisa, and Jeannie. John David Jr. played at Alabama under Bryant, and he was later killed in an automobile accident near Birmingham. He was thirty-nine years old. Crow died in College Station on June 17, 2015. He was seventy-nine. He was buried at Memorial Cemetery of College Station.