A Merle Haggard classic, "Okie from Muskogee," blared through my I-Pod a good deal of Wednesday as I attempted to deal with the passing of a friend of more than four decades.

Coach Ed.

Edwin Burba Crowder. Your friend, too. A giant in Bud Wilkinson's Oklahoma football machine in the 1950s.

But none more loyal to the University of Colorado, the city of Boulder and the state of Colorado.

He built the University of Colorado athletic program as we know it today. Saved the program, many folks will tell you, as he picked up the ashes remaining from the Sonny Grandelius era and returned CU to football prominence.

Not just on Folsom Field and the football cathedrals across the nation.

Crowder had to put the CU program on firm financial caissons. Even before he accepted Dean Harry Carlson's invitation to become the Buff football coach in January, 1963, Crowder ventured into the state to assure himself the financial support would be here. Just one of the many pieces of advice from his mentor, Wilkinson.

If Carlson had been calling the shots after Dal Ward was fired as CU coach following the 1958 season, the then-28-year-old Crowder would have been the youngest head coach in the nation. A regent-appointed committee went for Grandelius, all of 29.

By then Crowder had backed out of the running, warned by Wilkinson to gain just a tad more experience after one year at Army under the legendary Earl Blaik and three seasons on Bud's OU staff.

Crowder understood the potential here. No team gaveWilkinson's Sooners more fits than Ward's Buffs.

Eddie, a senior quarterback recognized as a magician with his ball-handling and faking, played in one of the epic OU-CU struggles at Folsom, a 21-21 tie in 1952.

A year earlier Crowder had pegged four touchdown passes against CU in Oklahoma.

Crowder's football pedigree? Unmatched. The third Sooner great to become a head coach at an early age after playing for Wilkinson. He followed Jack Mitchell (Kansas) and Darrell Royal (Texas) into the big time.

Many thought Crowder, highly intelligent, motivated, a dynamite recruiter and a marvelous speaker with his Wilkinson-like command of the English language, would someday return to Norman.

But Coach Ed's intense loyalty to CU never wavered.

After taking over for the retiring Carlson as athletic director in 1965, Crowder built the major fund-raising groups needed -- the Buff and Flatiron clubs -- and went about improving the athletic facilities.

The first and most lasting project involved removing the track from Folsom, lowering the playing surface and pushing the playing field into the closed end at the south. You have been on top of the action now for 40 years.

Every fan enjoys favorite moments from the Crowder years. Not all of mine resulted in wins.

I enjoyed the gamesmanship of his very first game when a veteran-laden Southern Cal, fresh off a Rose Bowl, had to slug through high grass on a rainy field for a 14-0 win. Then the Trojans' lead bus outside Balch Gymnasium stalled. Not a happy afternoon for USC coach John McKay.

Crowder had CU on the plus side by 1965. In a game I still feel changed Big Eight football history, Nebraska erased a 19-6 CU lead built by an option quarterback in the Crowder mold, Danny Kelly, and stunned CU 21-19 with two fourth-quarter scores.

Had CU held on, the Buffs would have finished 8-2 and played in the Sugar Bowl. A CU run to greatness might have followed.

Except for the 1968 finale, Crowder's teams owned Air Force in the state's top rivalry. And Crowder didn't hold down the score, crushing a Sugar Bowl-bound Falcon squad, 49-19 in 1970. The next year, the Buffs won 53-17 in Boulder, 24 hours after the CU frosh routed AFA's first-year troops, 69-7. The end of the series was near. Falcons' coach Ben Martin had enough.

After the '71 game, Crowder explained he had to go the distance with tailback Charles Davis because he had no other healthy running backs. You were fudging there, Coach Ed.

A real shortage of running backs led to the Crowder game many CUers remember first -- a 30-7 upset of Indiana's Rose Bowl veterans in 1969. Without an experienced tailback after losing Game 2 at Penn State, Crowder in a highly secret move switched quarterback Bobby Anderson to the spot in the days ahead of the Hoosiers' visit. On a snowy, muddy afternoon, Anderson even warmed up at quarterback.

Then, on CU's first possession, he began running roughshod over the stunned Hoosiers.

A stroke of genius. Anderson joined OU's Steve Owens as a consensus All-American running back at season's end.

Crowder's ability to deal with the game's power brokers set up a blockbuster windup to '69. CU played Vince Gibson's best K-State team here in the regular-season finale, the winner earning a Liberty Bowl spot vs. Alabama.

Colorado won a wild 45-32 game over KSU, then stunned Bear Bryant's Crimson Tide 47-33 in Memphis. "8-3 and Liberty" became the theme.

Who can forget a 41-13 shelling of Penn State in 1970 to end the Nittany Lions' three-year plus winning streak and land Boulder High grad Phil Irwin (a CU linebacker) on the Sports Illustrated cover? Or road wins over LSU, Ohio State and Houston on the way to a No. 3 finish nationally in 1971? Or a 20-14 ambush of Oklahoma in '72 that deprived Chuck Fairbanks of a national championship?

Crowder gave up coaching after a 5-6 season in 1973. A huge mistake. He had two of his best recruiting classes returning.

I told Coach Ed of my feelings. He admitted he consulted Ohio State's Woody Hayes. Hayes, like many top coaches, had to fight through a down period once in his career. His advice, Crowder said: Lock yourself in your office until everybody thinks you are crazy.

Crowder followed a more sane approach and stepped aside.

For one of the few times I knew Coach Ed, I disagreed with his eventual choice, Miami of Ohio's Bill Mallory, the hot new guy on the block in the Mid-America Conference. I favored Kent State's Don James, a former Crowder aide who had won sooner in the MAC and would become a huge winner at Washington.

Early on I preferred "Coach Ed" to "Chief," the insiders' moniker for Crowder. To Eddie, I quickly became "Coach Dan" for my second-guessing.

Crowder always surrounded himself with talented assistants. The '73 staff included among others future NFL head coaches Jim Mora and Les Steckel, NFL general-manager Steve Ortmayer and longtime NFL defensive coordinator Steve Sidwell.

He also made other terrific hires throughout his department. That includes such stalwarts as track coach Don Meyers, baseball coach Irv Brown and ski coach Bill Marolt.

On the administration side, he brought in men such as Jon Burianek and David Plati.

Eddie finally nailed the coaching-search gig in 1982 when he picked Bill McCartney off the Michigan staff. McCartney had what Crowder called pedigree. He played for Dan Devine at Missouri and coached for Bo Schembechler at Michigan.

Bring up Devine, and you are reminded Crowder coached in the Big Eight's greatest years against a lineup that included Bob Devaney at Nebraska, Chuck Fairbanks at OU, Johnny Majors at Iowa State, Pepper Rodgers at Kansas, Vince Gibson at Kansas State and Devine. Enough said.

Every fall, long-time CU booster John Dikeou hosts a lunch at the Ship's Tavern in the Brown Palace Hotel in Denver for about a dozen CU followers now classified as senior citizens. Everyone picks the CU record for the year and puts up a dollar. Crowder in charge. Meticulous records kept. To be reviewed at a postseason lunch, at which Coach Ed rules.

This year's gathering has been twice postponed, first for a conflict the Democratic Convention provided, and then a second time in hopes Crowder might be feeling well enough to attend next Tuesday.

It will never be the same without Crowder's input and wit.

Now is the time for me to say, "Good-bye Coach Ed."

Long-time Camera sports editor Dan Creedon covered Eddie Crowder from the time he was hired until he retired.