A Past Master Parts Company : Longtime St. Genevieve Football Coach Retiring With a Wealth of Memories

A bank of more than 50 television sets blared away inside the department store as Fonz and Richie and the rest of those swell, grease-haired guys of “Happy Days” babbled about girls and cars and more girls and tried to teach us some sort of lesson about life. Lindon Crow paid no attention as he walked down the aisle. Until he heard his name.

Crow pivoted on a pair of somewhat creaky knees and his eyes flashed back and forth and up and down at the TV sets. There in front of him was the 1962 model of Lindon Crow, young and strong and fast and playing cornerback for the Los Angeles Rams.

“The Bears step to the line, and Billy Wade drops back into the pocket and throws over the middle and . . . it’s picked off by Lindon Crow and the Rams get the ball back,” the game’s announcer shrieked loudly enough to stop the Fonz from saying “Haaaayyy!” for a few seconds.

Crow, 54, the St. Genevieve High football coach for the past 12 years and the school’s athletic director for the past four, smiles when he recalls that day a few years ago when his athletic career was revived in Hollywood. He has no idea why the producers of the TV show picked that footage from that NFL game.

“But I’ve seen it several times since then,” Crow said. “I figure the kids here at the school will never forget my name as long as they keep showing ‘Happy Days’ reruns. I tell the kids on my team that I wish I had some kind of residuals. I’d be rich.”

Then again, Crow reasons that he’s already rich. No, not from the money that he earned in his 10-year NFL career with the Cardinals and Giants and Rams. By today’s standards, Crow earned about as much as the guy who dashes onto the field after kickoffs to retrieve the tee. And certainly not from any bulging paychecks he’s received during his long tenure at St. Genevieve.

The riches that Crow has accumulated are tucked away in the only place that stock market crashes and a deep recession cannot touch. They are tucked away in his mind.

His long career in football, from his days at USC and in the NFL through his 12-year ride with high school players, will come to an end the next time his team loses a game.

He announced his retirement last summer, effective at the end of this season. When it’s over, he and his wife will pack everything they own into a large truck and head northeast. They will stop in the mountains of Utah, near the remote town of Cedar City, and stay warm with stacks of firewood and even higher stacks of memories.

“The end of the season will hurt,” Crow said, “but I think the real wave of emotion will come at the end of the school year, when I get ready to leave. But I’m pretty happy with what I’ve done here. We’ve met a lot of great people and made a lot of great friends.”

Those friends attempted last weekend to thank Crow for what he has done. After his team had knocked off Cathedral High and jumped into the playoffs--his teams have qualified for postseason play nine times in a career that has seen him post an 83-49-2 record--his players and their parents half-dragged Crow onto the field and presented him with a wooden plaque.

The ceremony and the plaque hit Crow pretty hard. But if you’re looking for a guy who’s going to break down and cry in public a few times a day, check out Phil Donahue, not Lindon Crow.

“It was a pretty emotional thing for me,” he said. “And then all the parents threw a really nice party for me later. All in all, it was OK.”

For a generation of athletes who have passed through the halls of St. Gens since 1976, it was a bit more than OK. To all of them he gave discipline. To those who passed through the long-hair phase of their lives, he gave scissors. And as he looks back, he has learned the truth about that old books-and-their-covers moral.

“I laugh sometimes when the first kids I coached come back to the school to say hi,” Crow said. “Some of them bring their children, and that really hits me. It doesn’t seem possible that I’ve been here that long. And I see the kids that used to have the long hair and sideburns and now they’re in three-piece suits with neat haircuts. And some of the guys who always walked right down the line come back now with earrings. I know now that you can never predict which way a kid is gonna go.”

But he vows to remember all of them, the good, the bad and the ugly.

“My memories will be of the players,” he said. “There were some nice moments and great games, but I’ll remember the guys, not the games. The players now know that the next game might be my last one, and they talk about it sometimes. But I’ve told them to think of themselves and to accumulate their own memories. I’ve got plenty of my own.”