HIM: The Marshall Crawley Story
HIM: The Marshall Crawley Story
By Ethan Orwig
Coach Marshall Crawley said he had a story to tell, and he was right.
He waited for me on the front steps of Dyer School, and it wasn’t until he stood to shake my hand that I saw just how huge he was. Coach Crawley’s arms were the width of telephone poles. We went inside and he led me down a flight of steps where Marshall opened the door to his office and he casually remarked, “I’m 68 years old, but feel 40.”
Marshall may have felt 40, but he looked it too. Everything about Marshall; his physique, his beaming smile, the way he carried himself- told me he was just entering his middle age. The office was a little room with bare walls and a couple of little school desks stacked with textbooks and loose papers. It was a humble setting which contrasted with the story of a richly lived life that Marshall shared with me there.
Marshall was raised well by his father, a preacher, and his loving mother, teaching him the groundwork principles of the man Marshall is today. The story began with John Pavletic, the most important influence in Marshall’s maturation. A drivers’ education teacher at Ripley High School, John was also an excellent basketball player. One day he asked Marshall, a freshman at the time, to play with him one-on-one.
“I didn’t know anything about anything,” Marshall laughed. “And John told me, ‘If you stay and play basketball with me, I’ll give you a ride home, meet your parents and teach you how play.’ And that turned into a type of friendship that to this day… he’s an extension of my family,” the coach said.
By pouring into Marshall, Mr. Pavletic lit a fire in his life, one that would carry over into adulthood. That fire inspired him to try out for track and field, the first wall of failure in the way of Crawley’s success.
“I was horrible as a freshman. I would get lapped, and they’d be trying to start another race. They’d leave the first lane open so I could finish… I was the laughingstock of the school and my teammates,” Crawley said earnestly. “I’d go home to my mother, and she was emotional. She’d say, ‘Why don’t you just…’ And I’d say ‘No mama. I’m going to be able to do this.’”
Every card on the table told Marshall Crawley to quit track and field. To give up. To move on to something else. But he refused.
“It got better by my junior year,” Marshall smiled. “Before I got out of high school, I was beating everybody. I was one of the best in the whole state of Tennessee. Just being able to endure myself through perseverance… I just don’t believe that I’m supposed to do anything but be successful.”
There was a practice day where Marshall had qualified go to run a regional race and Mr. Pavletic, the girls coach at the time, coached him too. During practice, Marshall had a cramp and couldn’t finish a run, and Mr. Pavletic pulled him aside. He said, “Winners never quit. And quitters never win.” It was something that Marshall would never forget. The next day, Marshall jumped off his porch in Ripley and started running down the street. He didn’t stop until he found himself in Dyersburg over twenty miles away. When Mr. Pavletic found out he said, “I’ll never question you again.”
I leaned forward in my chair. “You’re a legend,” I told him.
Coach Crawley shrugged at me.
“I don’t know about all that, man,” Coach said. “But I’m proud of who I am.”
Mr. Pavletic’s influence didn’t end with encouragement and teaching. He pushed Marshall in every aspect of life, even to the point of auditioning for a major role in the high school play “Hello Dolly.” But ultimately, Pavletic was the man who opened the door for Marshall to run track and field at Murray State University; the college where Crawley’s performance, drive, and perseverance bloomed to the national stage.
At Murray, Crawley went to the NCAA Track and Field National Championship twice where, on a relay team, he and three Englishmen ran the fourth fastest time in the entire nation on national television. They even set a Murray State record in the same event, a record which hasn’t hasn’t been broken in over 40 years. Soon, Crawley was receiving sponsorships from a shoe company called Brooks, interviews, and sudden attention that freshman Marshall Crawley would have never dreamed.
“See, I get emotional when I talk about where I came from because all the dominoes had to fall in place for me to even have continued to run,” Marshall said. “I had every reason to quit.”
But he didn’t.
Crawley put his degree on hold when he decided to join the military. After serving our country, he returned home and found himself substitute teaching in the Ripley school system when Mr. Pavletic urged him to go back to school. Pavletic opened the door for him to attend Dyersburg State Community College to finish his degree. One day while playing intramural basketball, one of the DSCC basketball coaches noticed his raw talent. Crawley earned himself a basketball scholarship and played two seasons at age 32. In 1991, Crawley made the NJCAA (National Junior College Athletic Association) Region VII team where he scored 25 points, had 16 rebounds, and 10 assists. Crawley described himself as a father figure to his young teammates.
Even then as a student Marshall Crawley made sure to touch the lives of those around him.
Following his college days, Crawley took his years of athletic and hardship experience and applied it wherever he went. Marshall was a Park Director in Oakland, TN, a reunion aftercare counselor to aid at-risk youths in Ripley, and he’s currently working at Dyer Elementary School as a coach and mentor while coaching middle and high school basketball.
Marshall credits his deep desire to pour into young people to Mr. Pavletic. He realized that he could use his improbable athletic success to light the same fire in others to pursue their goals against adversity.
“We don’t realize the impact that we have on people sometimes,” Marshall reflected. “Mr. Pav poured into me all of my life. So, what I’m doing, it’s the same thing that Mr. Pav did with me. I’ve become him, just in another form… My name is in the record books because somebody believed that I was good enough. I was smart enough to accept the belief that they believed.”
Coach Crawley takes every day as an opportunity to believe in somebody else. Whether it’s by sharing his experience in physical fitness, to ensuring every child receives a fist bump on their way off the school bus, Marshall Crawley’s taken on the role of Mr. John Pavletic in his own life.
Marshall pushed forward a stack of letters for me to read. They were reference letters from schoolteachers, university chancellors, and friends all praising Crawley for his endless perseverance, and pursuit for excellence. These reference letters aren’t just words. They’re evidence for Marshall’s remarkable drive and compassion for others.
“At this stage of my life, I want to put myself out there as a motivational speaker,” Marshall said, excitedly. “I feel that some people struggle and have nobody to talk to. When they can hear somebody has gone through something they’re dealing with, it makes them realize that life is a journey. Just because something isn’t working today doesn’t mean it’s not going to work tomorrow. You just have to be persistent and stay focused,” he said.
A man who’s never touched a drop of alcohol, smoked a cigarette, or thought of drug use, Marshall is the man to hire as motivational speaker for young influential kids.
When we left his office, we were met by a wave of students on the sidewalk. As they passed us. students were fighting to fist bump Coach Crawley first. They all echoed the phrase, “You’re him, Coach. You’re him.” Common slang for ‘You’re the man.’
Then Coach Marshall Crawley said one sentence that encapsulated everything that he is.
“I don’t know if I’m ‘HIM’ or not,” Marshall said. “But I’m going to be everything you need me to be.”
Marshall has two daughters, Marsha and Brittney, as well as his three stepdaughters with his wife Michelle; Zoey, Macy, and Maddie Neal; all of whom he loves very much.
