Cleveland High School football coach Ron Crawford is looking forward to the Blue Raiders' first home playoff game in years.Any time he’s been faced with a tough choice, Ron Crawford refers back to his personal list of priorities: faith, family and football. The level of importance he places on his family led the veteran football coach to resign from Cleveland High School Monday afternoon and accept an offer to return to Brentwood High.
"It all goes back to the big three priorities in my life, and the bottom line is we felt a lot of family reasons and things pulling us back home," Crawford said. "We've got two little grandbabies there and my sister just had her first baby, plus I have elderly parents and in-laws who are older, and they all need us to be closer.
"It's been weighing on me heavy for a couple of weeks. I like it at Cleveland and I believe in the kids here, this school and the system. But I always liked it in Brentwood, too, and that's where our family is and where we felt like we were needed more."
Crawford returns to a Brentwood program where he coached for 10 years, compiled a 94-32 overall record and won the Class 5A state championship in 2002. Before that he was the defensive coordinator at Riverdale, helping the Murfreesboro program win state titles in 1997 and 2001 and finish runner-up in 1995 and 2000.
In his three years with the Blue Raiders he compiled an 18-15 overall record, advancing to the second round of the Class 5A playoffs last season.
"Ron's a really dear friend and he's been up front the whole time, so we expected it, but it's still tough," said Cleveland athletic director Eric Phillips. "He loved it here and has a lot of great friendships. But it's tough when your family isn't close by.
"We're not going to rush, but we won't drag our feet, either. I fully expect to get a lot of quality people inquiring, because this is a great job. Ron did a nice job of coming in and putting a lot of good pieces together, and we've got three former head coaches on board right now as well as a bunch of quality coaches committed to Cleveland."
Contact Stephen Hargis at shargis@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6293.