Courtesy of Sports Illustrated
Daily Dose of Crimson Tide: Sylvester Croom
Tuscaloosa product Sylvester Croom was one of the first black football players at Alabama, and as a senior captain named an All-American in addition to winning the Jacobs Trophy as the Southeastern Conference’s best blocker. Before playing center, he was a linebacker, tight end and tackle.
During his three seasons, Croom helped lead Alabama to a 22-2 record, three straight SEC titles, and the 1973 national championship.
“In my career, I’ve been around a lot of great leaders,” Ozzie Newsome said. “And he led that huddle, trust me. He was impressive at a lot of things, but mostly a leader.”
The then became a coaching icon.
Croom was an assistant at Alabama for 11 seasons under Coach Paul W. "Bear" Bryant and Coach Ray Perkins, and then spent 17 years coaching in the NFL before finally getting the chance to be a head coach.
In 2003, Croom became the first black head football coach in the SEC at Mississippi State. He inherited a program that had been struggling, and was coming off three straight seasons in which the Bulldogs failed to top more than three wins.
But Croom wasn't just interested in making history. He also wanted to win. At the end of his fourth season he was named the 2007 SEC Coach of the Year.
Courtesy of the Bryant Museum
Croom always said that his love for the game was what kept him going as a coach, and after Mississippi State he returned to the NFL for eight more seasons.
When Mike Slive announced that he would step down as conference commissioner in 2015, he mentioned Croom's hiring as one of the proudest moments of his tenure. He later called it his greatest accomplishment.
“Before his hiring, my goal was to create a national conference," Slive said. "We were a bit regional. As long as we had shown we couldn't provide opportunity for everyone, we wouldn't be the kind of national league that I wanted us to be. With the hiring of Sylvester, it was a huge story, especially out of the state of Mississippi. That allowed us to become that national conference that we wanted to become.”
For more about Sylvester Croom we strongly recommend checking out the Rick Bragg story on him for Sports Illustrated (April 18, 2004):
