Dickie Warren and Steve Crowder were a match made in heaven, although Crowder might have thought he went through hell to reach the realization.
Crowder, the head basketball coach at Mt. Pleasant, returned to the Dickie Warren Dome on Sunday to attend a memorial service for Warren, who died Dec. 1 at the age of 89.
Warren piled up 922 wins during his career, and Crowder scored 2,230 points at Sullivan Central while helping Warren win 103 from 1981-85.
They went together like gin and tonic, and Cougars fans were all abuzz.
“Coach Warren was an offensive coach,” Crowder said Saturday, “and I liked to come down and pull (shoot quickly).”
Crowder grew up in Johnson City and initially wanted to play at Science Hill for Elvin Little, who’d coached his brother Brien. But Little retired in ’79. So Steve went to Boones Creek Middle School, where he put up big numbers while teaming with Steve Cox to win big for Dwight “Greasy” Leonard.
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So many assumed Crowder would play for Bobby Snyder at Daniel Boone. Problem was, Snyder was a defensive coach with a pass-happy offense.
And Warren had something else going for him. Crowder was going to be 13 years old until Sept. 23 of his freshman year of high school. If he transferred into Sullivan County, he’d be able to repeat the eighth grade without having to sit out in basketball.
Warren was initially all for the holdback – until he saw Crowder play in a scrimmage that summer.
“The biggest reason I was going was because I was going to hold back a year to get more mature and be ready for college better,” Crowder said. “But I played so well that day in that scrimmage, and he says, ‘I want him to come now and I won’t sit him on the bench. He’ll play. I’m not gonna bring him up there and sit him.’ So I went there and he didn’t hold me back, which honestly, now I look back and I probably should have.”
Not that Crowder or his involved father Frank second-guessed the decision at the time.
“Daddy always wanted me to play (for Warren) because he’s an offensive guy and I was really offense-minded even as a young guy,” Crowder said.
Of course, playing for Warren was a baptism by fire. A camp that summer at Milligan University was an ear-opening experience.
“Man, he scared me to death, the way he talked and everything,” Crowder said. “Of course, he got saved and stuff right after that and became real religious. But after that camp I was like, ‘Oh Lord, what have I gotten into.’”
A few months later, during his freshman season, Crowder came to realize why the veteran players wouldn’t sit next to Warren on the bench. There was no such thing as personal space for the player in the chair beside Warren’s.
“He’d stomp and grab and everything else,” Crowder said. “But I liked it, because a lot of times when he got mad he’d grab you and say, ‘Get him.’ So I’d go in (the game). And I ended up starting 10 games as a freshman.”
As a junior and a senior, Crowder was the Bristol Herald Courier Upper East Tennessee Player of the Year.
Central went 33-5 during his junior season. Crowder scored 35 points, including the game-winning basket with 29 seconds left, in a 60-57 state tournament win against Haywood County. And he scored 29 points in a 74-67 semifinal loss to undefeated Oakland.
So the first day of practice the following season, Crowder, the reigning all-state player and Big Man on Campus, was sporting a dirty blonde mustache and some facial hair.
“He comes and he looks at me said, ‘You ain’t practicing today,’” Crowder said. “And I thought, ‘What?’ And he said, ‘You ain’t practicing today. You didn’t shave.’
“So me being the way I am, I said, ‘Okay, I won’t.’ But then toward the end of school, I’m thinking, ‘What am I gonna tell daddy? He’s gonna ask me about practice.’ My dad was rough about stuff like that.”
Crowder was stressing, but still not keen on giving ground in this game of chicken.
“So I’m walking out towards the car and I’m starting to get a little scared (of his dad’s reaction) and everything,” Crowder said, “and I see Coach Warren coming walking real fast. He says, ‘Hey Crowder, come here. I’ve got a razor.’ He said, ‘Come on in here and just shave it and practice.’ I said, ‘Okay.’”
It felt like a draw of sorts – at least until Crowder saw the shaving conditions.
“He gives me one of those dull little plastic Bic razors,” Crowder said. “It looked like it’d been used several times. And I said, ‘You got any shaving cream?’ He said, ‘No, I ain’t got any.’
“You know those ole basins and stuff over there didn’t have any soap in it. So I sit there and there’s literally tears running down my eyes and I was pulling out my hair shaving without it. But you know, I practiced that day.”
The practice court was Warren’s laboratory.
“He made me a great player,” Crowder said. “I mean, he could get you an open shot anytime. He could get you wide open or a layup. …
“I mean, I was good, but he made me as good as I became. It was because of him, you know, getting me the ball, getting me open shots and running screen after screen. I always tell people he was an offensive genius.”
But there was a time when Crowder and Baron Minor strayed from the genius’ playbook, and it cost Central a win against Daniel Boone – in front of a huge crowd. Central was ranked No. 1 and Boone was ranked No. 2 in the state.
Central was ahead by five points with 42 seconds left and led 50-47 with 32 seconds left and had possession of the ball. Warren set up an inbounds play to get Crowder the ball. But when they took the court and saw Boone’s alignment, Crowder nodded at Minor, the inbounds passer, who understood the eye-contact message and tried to launch a long pass into the frontcourt to Crowder over 6-foot-8 Mark Larkey. But Larkey deflected the pass, leading to a turnover and an improbable rally that included Central missing the front end of a one-and-one foul shot.
Ultimately, Crowder’s cousin, Danny Good, made two free throws for the 51-50 victory, which wasn’t sealed until Crowder’s quick catch-and-shoot jumper from the top of the key over Larkey bounced off the back iron.
Crowder said there were spectators actually headed for the exits when Central was up five in the final minute. There was no 3-point shot and Central had excellent free throw shooters.
Warren was livid.
“We were at practice at 5 o’clock the next morning,” Crowder said. “He told me, ‘You think you know basketball! You think you’re gonna do what you wanna do!’ Because he’d drawn that play up. …
“We ran so much. I don’t think I ever ran anymore for him in four years. I never ever went against what he said after that. It cost us the game because we did that instead of getting it in and letting ‘em foul us.”
The tough love, Crowder says, was far more rewarding than it seemed at the time.
“It got to the point where I wanted to please him like my dad,” Crowder said. “I wanted to please him so much, and he just wouldn’t brag on ya. I mean, he would talk about the other kids, you know. I’d have 35 or something and I just wanted him to brag on me so bad in the paper.”
Granted, Crowder got plenty of ink, but never got to feel much, if any, love in print from Warren.
“I asked him one time at the end, I said, ‘You know, my whole time I wanted to make you proud of me. I wanted to please you just like I did my dad. And a lot of times you just never really said much positive about me in the papers,’” Crowder said. “And he said, ‘Well, let me tell you. Some kids, you get on ‘em and they play harder. And some kids, you brag on ‘em and they let up on you know and quit playing so hard.’ And he said, ‘You’re one of those kids.’”
The memory triggered hearty laughter from Crowder. He always admired the fiery Warren’s candor and competitiveness, not to mention his prolific body of work.
Long after Warren had retired, Crowder asked him why he didn’t hang around to reach 1,000 victories. Warren said it was just a different day as far as how you motivated teenagers to work hard.
“He was a great coach,” Crowder said. “But he taught me more about life and stuff like that than he did about basketball. … I loved the man.”