Paul Edward Crane

Paul Edward Crane died on October 31, 2020, in Mobile, Alabama, at the age of 76. He is survived by his wife Heike Roschen Crane and was preceded in death by his son Paul Edward Crane Jr., daughter-in-law Julia Manci Gardner Crane, and brother Louis F. Crane.

Paul was born on January 29, 1944, in Pascagoula, Mississippi, to Myrtle Crane and Edward L. Crane. He graduated in 1962 from Prichard’s Vigor High School where he excelled on the football field, earning All-State honors his senior season in 1961 for both the center and linebacker positions.

Paul’s talent caught the attention of Alabama head coach Paul “Bear” Bryant, and he went on to play both center and linebacker for the Crimson Tide from 1962 to 1965. It was a decorated collegiate career for the quiet and humble football star; he would leave Tuscaloosa as a two-time national champion, a consensus All-American, a co-captain and a winner of the Frank Thomas Memorial Award, among many other honors. He snapped the football for Alabama legends Joe Namath, Steve Sloan, and Ken Stabler — or, as Paul was known to wisecrack, “A lot of great guys had their hands on my heinie.” He was also a founding member of The Fellowship of Christian Athletes at the University of Alabama, an accomplishment he ranked among his finest.

Paul went on to play for eight years with the New York Jets (1966-1973) alongside former Alabama teammate Joe Namath. Playing as a linebacker, Paul won a championship in the legendary Super Bowl III. The win, against the Baltimore Colts, is regarded as one of the greatest upsets in both American football history and in the recorded history of sports. “To know that I was a part of that is incredible,” Paul said. He was voted the AFL’s “Player of the Week” on two occasions and in 1970 was voted “Most Popular Jet” by the New York Catholic Youth Organization. The likable star didn’t drink, smoke, or swear. In fact, he led his Jets teammates in prayer before and after games. In the book, “Beyond Broadway Joe” by Bob Lederer, the author humorously notes: “Some observers found great irony in the genuine bond and esteem between two Alabama grads, the straight-laced Crane and the swinger Joe Namath.”

Reflecting on his immensely successful football career, Paul once remarked with his characteristic humility, “So much is timing and just being lucky. I was in the right place at the right time.” But friends and teammates tell a different story, one that involves grueling work — not luck. Though Paul was considered small by football standards, coaches liked to say, “He played a lot bigger than he was.” He was as tough as they come. Sixty-eight players entered the Alabama football program his freshman year. Four years later, Paul was one of the nine who remained. “The highlight of anybody’s career is to win big games,” he once said, “but to win big games with your friends, that was even better.”

While playing for the Jets, he met his wife Heike in New York, and the two married on December 26, 1971, in Houston, Texas. After retiring from professional football, Paul began what would be a lifelong passion for coaching and youth mentorship. From 1973 to 1977, he returned to his alma mater to coach linebackers under Coach Bryant. Barry Krauss, an Alabama linebacker, remembered Coach Crane as “laid-back, a leader. We all listened to him.”

Paul laughed in later years recalling coaches meetings with Coach Bryant, who would ask each position coach about the progress of certain players. “If you said a certain player was doing great and he wasn’t, Coach would say, ‘I don’t think he’s doing worth a darn.’ Then you’re sitting there with egg on your face. You learned pretty quickly not to pad it.”

From 1978 to 1981, he worked as the defensive coordinator at the University of Mississippi before returning to Mobile, where he worked as manager of Ladd Memorial Stadium and eventually as athletic director and head football coach at McGill-Toolen High School. For 28 years, he served as executive director of the Catholic Youth Organization (CYO), an enormous responsibility which involved managing basketball, football, volleyball, soccer and golf teams for kids from second to eighth grades from over a dozen schools. He’s remembered by many as a devout Christian who worked every day to improve the lives of others. When a new floor was to be installed in a CYO gym, one friend remembers how Paul used a heat gun to remove every tile himself, in order to save the organization money.

He loved to fish, a hobby that took off in earnest during offseasons at Alabama, where he purchased a boat for use on Lake Tuscaloosa. Golf, another lifelong passion, was both a source of relaxation and an opportunity for charity; for years, Paul organized a golf tournament for Mobile’s Drug Education Council (of which he was a board member), inviting fellow Crimson Tide stars to help increase public participation in the event. The sport, however, is “frustrating for these old football players,” Paul once said. “Football is a contact sport, so we think if we just swing harder we’ll all be better. But it makes it worse.” The Super Bowl victory and the ring that came with it “give me entry to talk about something else,” he once explained, “and I do a fair amount of speaking for drug education.”

Proverbs 19:22 states, “What is desired in a man is kindness,” and Heike says this describes her husband perfectly. Paul is remembered for his caring patience, his humility, and his tendency to prefer team accolades to personal ones. “He was like a father to me,” many have said in the days after his death, a testament to Paul’s ability for making those he loved feel as though they were truly special in his eyes — and they were.

Paul was diagnosed four years ago with chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE), a brain condition associated with repeated blows to the head. The condition, a result of his time playing competitive football, defined the last three years of his life. “It changed him completely, and it changed our lives,” said Heike. The family would like to thank Hospice of Mobile, Paul’s private caregivers, and the many friends who have supported Paul and Heike over the course of Paul’s illness.

A graveside service is scheduled for 1 p.m. on Saturday, November 7, 2020, at Forest Lawn Memorial Gardens in Saraland, where Paul will be interred next to his only child with Rev. Wayne Miller of Grace Lutheran Church officiating. All are welcome to attend and celebrate Paul's life. In lieu of flowers, please send donations to the Mobile SPCA (620 Zeigler Cir W, Mobile, AL 36608) and the Drug Education Council (3000 Television Ave, Mobile, AL 36606).