It was an Eddie Crowder kind of afternoon.

A brilliant sun was shining down over the Flatirons as an impressive contingent of University of Colorado luminaries and friends gathered on this September Saturday to honor the legendary CU football coach and athletic director.

Crowder died Tuesday night from complications due to leukemia at the age of 77. His spirit lived on during a memorial service at Folsom Field with an estimated 1,000 in attendance.

"We're here to remember a most significant life in the state of Colorado," said former CU All-American Bobby Anderson, who played for Crowder from 1967-69.

"This is a great gathering of the Colorado football family. It's game day. So it's fitting we're out here on such a beautiful Colorado fall afternoon."

The Buffs had a scheduled bye week and did not play on Saturday. Current CU head coach Dan Hawkins, whose team will host No. 25 West Virginia on Thursday, was at Crowder's bedside moments before he passed away.

"The last thing he said to Dan was, 'You're the right man for the job,' " Crowder's widow, Kate, said.

There is no question Crowder was the perfect choice to return the program and the athletic department to prominence when he arrived in Boulder on Jan. 3, 1963. CU was 67-49-2 during his 11 seasons, including a 10-2 finish in 1971 that included a final ranking of No. 3 in the Associated Press poll behind Big 8 rivals Nebraska and Oklahoma.

During his playing days in Norman, Crowder was the Sooners' quarterback under legendary coach Bud Wil-kinson. An Oklahoma writer once described the slippery signal caller as "The best boot-legger since Al Capone."

"Eddie really was a national figure," said Steve Ehrhart, who was a graduate assistant at CU under Crowder and later served as his mentor's legal advisor. "He was so well respected around the country."

Crowder's Buffs snapped Joe Paterno's 31-game win streak by upsetting the Penn State Nittany Lions in 1970; they beat Woody Hayes' Ohio State Buckeyes at Columbus in 1971; and they handed Chuck Fairbanks' No. 2 Oklahoma Sooners their only loss in 1972.

But perhaps the most significant game against a big-time opponent was the 1969 Liberty Bowl when Crowder's CU team defeated Bear Bryant and the Alabama Crimson Tide in Memphis, Tenn.

"Eddie brought a fully integrated team to the South to play all-white Alabama," said Ehrhart, who is currently the executive director of the Liberty Bowl.

"I didn't realize the impact that had until about 15 years later. But when you think about what was going on at the time with the civil rights movement and the changes that came not long after that game ... living in Memphis I can really see what a big deal that was."

Crowder's daughter, Carol, recalled a somber bus ride during her childhood from the stadium to the hotel after CU lost one of the five bowl games it played in during her father's sideline reign.

"I said, 'You know, we really shouldn't come to these games if we're not going to win them,'" she said.

Crowder served as athletic director at CU from 1965-1984. After Fairbanks compiled a 7-26 record in three seasons, he needed to make a great hire to make the football competitive on the national stage again.

Enter Bill McCartney.

"Then my first three years we only won seven more games," McCartney said. "Those 14 wins in six years ranked CU dead last in college football over that span."

Crowder retired from his position as athletic director in 1984, loyal to McCartney, and never wavered in his confidence that he was the right man.

A school-record 153 victories and the 1990 national championship certainly validated the decision to stick with McCartney.

"Coach Crowder was patient with me but forthright," McCartney said.

Former Oklahoma head coach Barry Switzer and OU fraternity brother Lee Allen Smith were also scheduled as eulogists but were unable to make the trip due to Hurricane Ike.

Crowder's name was painted on the field and the flags above the stadium hung at half-staff. Jerry Rutledge, a former CU Regent, described the setting this way:

"This is the house that Eddie built."