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Brown High Class of 1954
Crawford was an all-state center-linebacker at Brown High in 1953 and winner of a
football scholarship to the University of Miami. He was an assistant coach
for two years at Avondale High School before becoming head coach at Druid
Hills in 1963. His record was 28-27-5 in six years at Druid Hills, before
returning to Avondale in 1970, where he served one year as an assistant coach to
Calvin Ramsey, who had held the position of head football coach at Avondale High
since that school first opened its doors in 1951. When he retired in 1971 Ramsey's
record was 167 wins, 33 losses and 8 ties. He was the winningest football coach
in DeKalb County history. Upon Ramsey's retirement Crawford became only the
second head coach to hold down that job at Avondale. In 1976 Crawford was named
state coach of the year and his Avondale Blue Devils finished 14-0 and won
the AAA state championship. In 1988 Crawford surpassed his old boss Calvin
Ramsey and became the winningest coach in DeKalb County, a record which
stood until October of 1999. In a 10-20-1988 interview with an Atlanta newspaper sports reporter Coach Kennedy said "I am not an organizer, I do a lot of coaching off the cuff. I don't have every minute planned at practice. I have a game plan each week, but I'd rather go on instinct, what feels right at the time. People who say organization is the only way to get it done, I don't agree with." Others interviewed by that reporter: "He reminds me of a championship chess player," says Ames Kitchens, Kennedy's principal at Avondale for the last 14 years. "The wheels are always turning." "He always does his homework," says former assistant Brian Hage. "So when the opportunity presents itself, he knows what to do with it." "But the great contradiction in Kennedy's success" the reporter went on "is that he's not doing it by the numbers at all. His forte as a coach isn't reason, it's feel, it's intuition. He's not the introverted math teacher on the sideline, he's the mad scientist. Mix a little bit of this and a dash of that, and, presto, it's the right decision at the right time." "I've seen Crawford experience success when he had a full, experienced coaching staff, and when his staff was young," says Kitchens. "He's gone full circle from when kids played both ways to two-platoon and back again. Whatever the situation, he's always won." "Crawford's the best sideline coach I've ever seen," says Searle. "He has the ability during a game to make any adjustments necessary, and that's why he's ultra-successful. Just look at the number of close games Avondale has won. "I can remember sitting in a film session late one night, and Crawford kept rolling the projector back and forth, looking at one thing over and over. Finally I asked him what on earth he was looking for. And he said, `When we were in this formation in the first quarter their strong safety had his left foot forward. And now in the third quarter we're in the same formation and now he has his other foot forward, and I'm trying to figure out why.' Heck, I wouldn't even have noticed the kid had shoes on." Though Kennedy was state coach of the year in 1976, he has never, incredibly, been named DeKalb coach of the year. Well, Avondale's supposed to win, right? Typically quiet and unassuming, he points out that the winners have all been deserving. He shies from the spotlight, even admits that he hates being interviewed by sportswriters. Of course, this all fits. Kennedy is forthright and candid - honest to a fault - and he knows that this can land him in trouble. That's why he carefully monitors everything he says. But don't be fooled by the reserved veneer. "He's nice and he's friendly and he says all the right things," says Searle, "but if he's got his hands on your jugular, son, he's going to squeeze. He's the kind of guy you don't want to play against. He knows the cards he's got, and he probably knows the cards you've got, too. "He's not the kind to jump up on the table, but he's meticulous and motivated and he'd going to beat you with it because he wants to beat you worse than you want to beat him." Lithonia coach Phil Knight began coaching against Kennedy when Knight was at Columbia in the early 70s. "You enjoy, after it's over with, working against a guy like Crawford," says Knight. "You know his teams will be prepared, and it's interesting to see the adjustments he'll make to play you. He's the most innovative coach, as far as blocking schemes, I've ever seen."
"There's no way I believe that I've outdone what Calvin did - it never even entered my mind that it was possible to reach that many wins," says Kennedy. "He did it in a much shorter period of time, so there's no comparison there as far as I'm concerned." He's proud that many of his former assistants have done well. Jimmy Rakestraw was successful as his successor at Druid Hills, Jack Wilks did well at Tucker, Steve Shankweiler won a state title at Redan in 1979, and T. McFerrin worked with him at Druid Hills. "I get asked quite a bit, `When you were at Avondale how did Crawford handle this-and-such?' " says Searle. "He's got a reputation spread all over everywhere." Kennedy is also held in high regard as a classroom teacher. He has taught advanced calculus. "He has, for the most part, maintained a full teaching load in math," says Kitchens. "You can go in some parts of the state where the coach has experienced the same kind of success, and they don't have the expectation of teaching any classes, much less a full load." After this year, Kennedy will have completed his 30 years and be eligible for retirement. He says he has no plans and is keeping his options open, but one possibility is certainly a private school where he can draw his retirement and still receive a salary, like Creel does now at Westminster. Or he may leave coaching. "I've been going to school since I was five," he says. "Maybe it's time for a change." Whatever he does, he'll do it because it feels right. And so far that's worked out pretty darn well.
From an article by Jim Satterly, AJC Sports Editor, 10-20-1988.