RIP Jake Crouthamel

[SWC75]

So true.

You think about where Syracuse was in 1977, when he took over.

Manley had just been expanded to just under 9600 seats. We had a regional program for basketball. Jim Boeheim had just been hired and the future for basketball was cloudy. The NCAA was systemically reducing at large bids available to Eastern independents, forcing them to play the top teams against each other at the end of the season in ECAC tournaments for a single bid. Syracuse was close to getting shut out of the NCAA tournament completely.

The football team was playing in Archbold Stadium, which was close to being condemned. It had fallen into awful condition, and was down to about 25K capacity, at the same time our competitors were building new faculties or expanding existing ones.

We were far behind our competitors in things like practice facilities, weight rooms, budgets and fan interest. The only bright spot was interest in men’s basketball was high.

Things like the Carrier Dome, a new state of the art facility for basketball and football, were only a dream. As was the Big East conference, which would quickly develop into the best basketball conference in America. Down the road, it would also become a premiere football conference.

Who could dream that we would routinely set attendance records for basketball, get the football program to a place where bowl games became a routine and we would even go to 3 Final Fours, and win a national championship in basketball?

Jake didn’t do it all himself but he was there, a big part of all of this.

All the while, approachable, accommodating and considerate.

He was a special man. Condolences to his friends and family.

Jake Crouthamel, Jim Boeheim, Mel Eggers, (SU Chancellor) Hugh Carey, (who provided state funding for the Dome), Dave Gavitt, (who created the Big East), and Bill Rasmussen, (who created ESPN) all had a hand in our program's success.

 

[Moontan]

Jake was a great guy.

Although I never met him for conversation, we did exchange a bunch of emails in 2002 & 2003 when the heat started to be turned up on Coach P. Short and direct, but I knew it was him and not a secretary.

The first player signed by the Cowboys and one of the best, if not the best, ADs for the Orange(men/women).

Having an adult beverage in his memory.

Thanks, Jake!

 

[hungrychuck]

I’m coming out of lurkerdom to pay respects to Jake.

We met when I was a writer and sports editor for the DO in the late 70s. We did not always see eye to eye. Jake sought me out to discuss this more than once. I remember him balancing a smoke and a Scotch on at least one occasion.

Tough guy, brutally honest man’s man. Think we parted still in disagreement but let’s just say I was fully cognizant of Jake’s opinion going forward.

I believe I would have appreciated him even more later in life and regret I didn’t get a chance. Might have even realized he had been right.

May he RIP.

 

[OrangePA]

A brilliant man.

A true Syracuse Legend.

 

[SWC75]

I saw both sides of Jake. In the pre-E-mail days I sent him a letter about where, as a fan and season ticket holder, I'd like to see the program go in future. I didn't know what to expect but he sent me a gracious response and poked some holes in my ideas. I sent him a thank-you note with a couple of 'points of order'. He sent me a response that said "College athletics is all about one thing: money!" and said "I see no reason to continue our 'pen-pal' relationship."

If you type "SI vault Jake Crouthamel", you get this Sports Illustrated article from November 30, 1959: HERE ARE THE BEST OF THE IVIES

It has this to say about Jake:

JAKE CROUTHAMEL
Dartmouth halfback (5 feet 11, 191 pounds)

Jake Crouthamel, in appearance a kind of Ivy League Huck Finn, is a happy boy. He loves to play football and he is good at it—a tiger on defense, one of the best all-round halfbacks the Ivy League has had in years. The pros are after him to try out. He studies hard (diplomatic relations, great issues, American thought) and has the easy grace and assurance of a natural athlete whose physical ability is backed up by a good mind. He likes Ivy League football as a sport, because the competition is keen and the play is rough. "Maybe it doesn't measure up in ruggedness and personnel to some of the other conferences," he says, "but you always know, afterwards, that you've been in a football game." Jake Crouthamel has a beef, however.

"I have a scholarship based on need," says Jake, whose father is a foreman in a Perkasie, Pa. garment plant and has made sacrifices to send his son and a daughter to college. "Yet every year except this one it's been cut." He believes the Ivies should relax the rules, allow spring training, let the players compete in postseason games if they are given the chance. "But the Ivy League code forbids participation, and this I resent."

He obviously wanted to be a part of something more ambitious in the world of athletics and that's how he wound up here and made us into something much bigger than we'd ever had before. Other people contributed to that, but Jake was like the point guard you run your offense through. Towards the end, he was more of a "protect my legacy guy". But it was quite a legacy.

I found this photograph from his Dartmouth days. Nice crew cut!

(The others are his head coach at Dartmouth, Bob Blackmon and New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller.)

 

[SWC75]

I’m coming out of lurkerdom to pay respects to Jake.

We met when I was a writer and sports editor for the DO in the late 70s. We did not always see eye to eye. Jake sought me out to discuss this more than once. I remember him balancing a smoke and a Scotch on at least one occasion.

Tough guy, brutally honest man’s man. Think we parted still in disagreement but let’s just say I was fully cognizant of Jake’s opinion going forward.

I believe I would have appreciated him even more later in life and regret I didn’t get a chance. Might have even realized he had been right.

May he RIP.

It would have been interesting to be a fly on the wall when Jake and JB had a session. Neither has been shy about expressing himself.

 

[hungrychuck]

It would have been interesting to be a fly on the wall when Jake and JB had a session. Neither has been shy about expressing himself.

Oh that is for sure. I am not going to get into the "feedback" I received from JB. Let's just say I have fonder memories of Jake.

 

[OrangeXtreme]

 

[OttoMets]

"Winston" clear as day through his breast pocket.

 

[kirbivore]

So true.

You think about where Syracuse was in 1977, when he took over.

Manley had just been expanded to just under 9600 seats. We had a regional program for basketball. Jim Boeheim had just been hired and the future for basketball was cloudy. The NCAA was systemically reducing at large bids available to Eastern independents, forcing them to play the top teams against each other at the end of the season in ECAC tournaments for a single bid. Syracuse was close to getting shut out of the NCAA tournament completely.

The football team was playing in Archbold Stadium, which was close to being condemned. It had fallen into awful condition, and was down to about 25K capacity, at the same time our competitors were building new faculties or expanding existing ones.

We were far behind our competitors in things like practice facilities, weight rooms, budgets and fan interest. The only bright spot was interest in men’s basketball was high.

Things like the Carrier Dome, a new state of the art facility for basketball and football, were only a dream. As was the Big East conference, which would quickly develop into the best basketball conference in America. Down the road, it would also become a premiere football conference.

Who could dream that we would routinely set attendance records for basketball, get the football program to a place where bowl games became a routine and we would even go to 3 Final Fours, and win a national championship in basketball?

Jake didn’t do it all himself but he was there, a big part of all of this.

All the while, approachable, accommodating and considerate.

He was a special man. Condolences to his friends and family.

After experiencing SU seriously behind the curve in the late 70's it's too bad he didn't publicly raise hell about Buzz reallocating football money to the detriment of the program.

 

[MadNY3]

After experiencing SU seriously behind the curve in the late 70's it's too bad he didn't publicly raise hell about Buzz reallocating football money to the detriment of the program.

He was a Dartmouth man. I get it.

He did a lot of good. And was very smart. I learned a lot from a two-year consulting assignment ironically in his final two.

 

[SmilinBob]

A football man down to the core and drew no attention to himself. I think SU had him at the right time they needed him.

On another note...I have no doubt Jake was the Cigarette Smoking Man on X-Files.

 

[SWC75]

A football man down to the core and drew no attention to himself. I think SU had him at the right time they needed him.

On another note...I have no doubt Jake was the Cigarette Smoking Man on X-Files.

Maybe he was the Marlboro Man:

 

[WoadBlue]

What I most recall about Jake Crouthamel is that Joe Paterno blamed him for the BE rejecting Penn St, which then Paterno used as his excuse for turning his back against all northeastern sports. I think Crourthamel was too nice in dealing with Paterno's claims. Anybody with a brain knew that the smaller schools that did not play 1A football were all opposed to PSU in the BE.

 

[kirbivore]

A football man down to the core and drew no attention to himself. I think SU had him at the right time they needed him.

On another note...I have no doubt Jake was the Cigarette Smoking Man on X-Files.

If we was the "pass interference on the day-fence" ref from the 1998 Tennessee game would've been disappeared.

 

[SmilinBob]

If we was the "pass interference on the day-fence" ref from the 1998 Tennessee game would've been disappeared.

We never saw that call (too short pants) ever again, correct? Always behind the scenes.

 

[sufandu]

We never saw that call (too short pants) ever again, correct? Always behind the scenes.

I saw it called one other time a few years ago but never twice in the same game and on the same team, no less.