Crawford was born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1915 and grew up in Wilmington, Delaware. At age 17, Crawford was stricken with tuberculosis and confined to a sanitorium.  Determined to recover from tuberculosis and make his body strong, Crawford took up tumbling and swimming at the Wilmington YMCA.  Wandering into the wrestling room one day at the YMCA, he was asked if he would fill in and wrestle a match at 135 lbs. Crawford won the match and went undefeated in his rookie season. The following year he moved up to 165 lbs. and won a national YMCA title. By 1936, Crawford was one of the top wrestlers in the United States and competed in the Olympic wrestling trials. In 1937, Crawford moved up to 174 lbs., winning the first of three National AAU Light-Heavyweight Wrestling titles (1937, 1938, 1939). In 1938, Crawford traveled to Europe with the U.S. National Wrestling Team where he defeated Sweden’s Ivar Johansson, an Olympic Champion. In Crawford’s only full season of collegiate wrestling, the 24-year-old Appalachian State freshman finished 2nd at the 1941 NCAA Tournament. Crawford’s defeat in the NCAA final led to an NCAA rule change. His opponent used the outside edge of the mat to stall, leading to a new feature on wrestling mats which has been called the “Crawford Circle.” As the U.S. entered World War II in 1941, Crawford served in the Air Force from 1941-45.  After the war, Crawford attended graduate school at UNC Chapel Hill. In June 1946, he was hired by North Carolina State University as head wrestling coach and assistant athletic trainer.  Crawford remained with N.C. State for 22 seasons picking up 84 career dual wins, coaching eight conference champions, and finishing 2nd in the 1966 ACC Tournament. Tragically, on December 1, 1967, Crawford suffered a fatal heart attack while coaching the Wolfpack in the Georgia Tech Invitational Wrestling Tournament. Crawford is posthumously inducted into two Hall of Fames: Appalachian State University Hall of Fame (1978) and the North Carolina Chapter of the National Wrestling Hall of Fame (2022).