Today's Tidbit... Rae Crowther's 1963 Defensive Reaction Machine

We live in a world where our virtual friends and acquaintances can show acts of kindness, just like people we know in the real world. Yesterday, I received an item in the mail from a virtual friend. We know each other through a football collectors forum and have never spoken. His father played in the NFL from 1926 to 1933, so he has some fantastic stuff between his dad's momentoes and his own collecting, including many early NFL program overs and other pieces he shares here.

Looking to rid himself of extra items, he offered to send me a c. 1964 brochure for the Rae Crowther Defensive Line Machine. By then, Crowther was 62ish years old. After growing up in New Jersey, he made his way to Colgate, where he played football under Dick Harlow, graduating in 1923, before making the 1924 Olympic boxing team, and playing with the Frankford Yellow Jackets in 1925 and 1926, so Hap Moran and Rae Crowther were teammates during the 1926 NFL championship season.

Crowther was the line coach at Drexel from 1930 to 1932, assisted Dick Harlow at Harvard from 1933 to 1937, and was at Penn from 1938 to 1953. While considered one of the best line coaches of his era, he is remembered today for designing, constructing, and selling practice equipment since 1932 and spending full time in that effort after the 1953 season.

('Aide To Harlow Going To Penn,' Boston Globe, January 26, 1938.)

Few pieces of equipment better reflect football's blood, sweat, and tears than blocking sleds and similar equipment. Crowther deserves a place of honor in the pantheon of football coaches and suppliers as a primary contributor of that equipment to the game.

Unlike most businesses that produce products that are quickly consumed and replaced or that last a few years before going out of style, Crowther built sturdy equipment that lasted for years, like the Defensive Reaction Machine. The durability of the machines and the volatility of the coaching profession led one of his salespeople to quip that Rae Crowther's machines often outlasted the coaches who bought them.

Below are images of Crowther's 1963 Defensive Reaction Machine brochure. It is a fun period piece about equipment that trained defensive linemen to react to movement at the snap of the ball. More than a few defensive linemen used this machine or something similar during their days on the gridiron practice field. (Click the images to enlarge.)

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