Dewell Crumpton talked enthusiastically about the running camp he was planning soon for his track team.
In the mornings, the members would run and attend seminars on such topics as being winners in Christ. Then, in the afternoons, they would run some more.
Running is in the blood of the Cook Springs Baptist Church member, and has been ever since he was a teen racing toward the prize himself. Running, he found, teaches important lessons about a walk in Christ and the race of life.
Creating winners has been a driving force for more than 45 years for Crumpton, a longtime Alabama high school athletic director and coach. As a coach, he found he has a special advantage in the lives of young people: Coaches can tell the very same things to young people that parents do, but youth will listen.
Running track, he pointed out, is a great deterrent to self-destructive behavior. Young people cannot run and do drugs too, Crumpton said. By being involved in track and field, they come to understand a different kind of high — one where they respect their bodies, respect others and get something out of themselves they didn’t know was there.
Several dozen state or Southeastern Conference (SEC) champs have been coached by Crumpton. A female state champ earned a scholarship to Samford University. But it didn’t matter to Crumpton whether the runners came from his team or not — he would help anyone, even members of rival teams.
Once he saw a runner from a Birmingham school who was quite talented but had been overlooked by colleges. Crumpton, who hadn’t coached the young man, secured a tryout at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. When he discovered that the student had no means for getting to the tryout, Crumpton and his wife, Faye, drove the young man.
From the tryout, the student earned a scholarship and went on to become the SEC champ in the 880-yard run, Crumpton said.
While coaching at Banks High School, Crumpton saw his track team go undefeated for three years — champions in the city, county and district, he recounts. Then came the Vietnam War, when Crumpton enlisted and was put to work as a coach in the athletics program at Fort Rucker near Enterprise.
Crumpton then coached at Ramsay in Birmingham, his team taking SEC and state titles. Crumpton said he and the students were in it for fun. But the youth pushed themselves to become better and to achieve. At Huffman High School, he served as athletic director, track coach, head football coach and, his last year, assistant principal. In 1970, he went into private business.
Yet, he continued to volunteer. In 1995, he came back to coaching, this time for a girls’ team at Pleasant Grove High School. The team became county champ that school year, said Crumpton.
Then came his own race for life — cancer entered the picture, with surgery and treatment following. Though the recovery was long, as his strength returned, Crumpton found that working with youth took his mind off himself.
Soon afterward, Crumpton learned through a neighbor about home-schooled students in the umbrella group Crossroads Christian School in Moody. Crumpton went to work organizing a track team for the home-schoolers.
There were fewer than 10 members that first season. But by the second, the number of Crossroads Flyers, as the team is called, had grown to 55. The team now consists of about 70 home-schoolers and other interested students. “I feel blessed,” said Crumpton. “I feel like it is what I was led to do.”
Watching those athletes blossom and develop self-confidence keeps Crumpton doing what he does, all on a voluntary basis. “They’re seeing they have ability within themselves,” he said.
Crumpton refers to his own past, saying he was considered the least likely athlete. But his coaches saw potential and instilled in him a desire.
Until he became a senior in high school, Crumpton had never won a race. But that year he didn’t lose one. Many young people he said, quit right on the threshold of doing something great. But with good coaching, determination and God-given ability, Crumpton saw his own track and field achievements begin to mount.
While a student at Ramsay, he set three state records — in the 120-yard high hurdles, 180-yard low hurdles and in the high jump — in one day.
He became the SEC indoor, high hurdle and high jump champion. “I got the first full scholarship in track at Alabama,” Crumpton said.
The achievements continued at the University of Alabama, where he said he set a record for 120-yard high hurdles and was team captain. While in college, Crumpton worked with youth in track and field. One Tuscaloosa runner in particular comes to mind. “He became my first state champion,” Crumpton recalls.
It’s not all about winning, though, the coach explained. It’s about being victors in Christ.
Winning, Crumpton said, is about setting a personal record and reaching or exceeding it. A student in last place who improves his or her time can be just as pleased about the accomplishment as someone who receives a ribbon.
His pastor, Bobby Parker of Cook Springs Baptist Church, has seen Crumpton in action at the running camps. As coordinator for St. Clair Association’s Camp Sonshine near Pell City, Parker is impressed by Crumpton’s ability to motivate young people. “He’s a fine Christian,” who “loves the Lord,” Parker said.
With the challenge before Crumpton now as he once more runs a race with cancer, Crumpton is depending on the strength of Christ to get him through. “It’s in the Lord’s hands,” he said.
Though undergoing chemotherapy, Crumpton continues to focus his team members on their next meet.
Crumpton, a 68-year-old father and grandfather, plans practices weeks in advance, so members know when , where and what things to do to prepare, in case he can’t be there.
Even in absentia, Crumpton seeks to ready the students for the race — and for life.
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