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.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.”
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.”
