Eddie Crowder, a long-time Colorado football coach and athletics director, died September 10 from complications of leukemia. He was 77.

His family was by his side after he checked into a hospital Monday with respiratory problems. Earlier this decade, he had overcome non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

Crowder was hired January 3, 1963, as Colorado’s 17th head football coach. On July 1, 1965, he also assumed the duties of athletics director, succeeding the retiring Harry Carlson.

Colorado was 67-49-2 in Crowder’s 11 seasons as coach, and he is credited with turning the program into a national football power. Some of his coaching highlights included road wins at No. 9 LSU and No. 6 Ohio State in 1971, a victory against No. 4 Penn State that ended the Nittany Lions’ 31-game unbeaten streak in 1970, a 49-19 win over a 10th-ranked Air Force team in 1970 and an upset of No. 2 Oklahoma in 1972.

Crowder, who served as athletics director at Colorado from 1965-84, was a student-athlete at Oklahoma, where he played for coach Bud Wilkinson. He was a reserve quarterback on the Sooners’ first national championship team in 1950.

He started for Oklahoma the next two seasons and guided the Sooners to an 8-2-0 mark in 1951 and 8-1-1 in 1952. In his senior year, Crowder was named to the all-America and all-Big Seven Conference teams.