Credit to James Kowalczyk

Coach Crawford on the sideline coaching the C-Team girls basketball team on Dec. 16 against Parkway West.

Current FHN girls basketball coach Will Crawford used to coach boys basketball at Francis Howell High School. In fact, he spent five of the last six years coaching at Howell. During his time at Howell, he spent his time figuring out who he was as a coach and what he would focus on moving forward.​

“I’m super grateful for my experience over there,” Crawford said. “I was able to get my feet wet with coaching, meet some great people, and I’m still friends with them…I loved the dynamic that Howell brought, and coaching in those big games. It’s probably some of the most fun I’ve had in a basketball job. They’re intense, they love winning, and it’s a place I’ll always be grateful for.”

Howell would play a big role in conditioning Crawford into the coach he is today. At Howell, he started his first year as the assistant coach for varsity, before he became the head coach for the freshman team for the next two years. Finally, he ended as the JV head coach and varsity assistant coach in his last year. While he was there, he got right to making connections with the players, helping them win games, and pushing them to play as best as they could, even if he had to be harsh at times.

 “They’ve built such a winning culture,” Crawford said. “In my second year as a freshman coach, we didn’t have a great year, and I had to have some tough conversations with the players about it… That was something that was definitely a challenge, more than any other sport. I had to be more mad when we lost than happy when we won, and I think that’s part of just how it works over there.”

But by his fifth year, his experience there came to a close. Crawford would move on to bring his talents to North as the assistant coach on the girls’ basketball team. The switch from boys basketball to girls basketball was a new challenge for Crawford, not to mention the completely new high school he was coaching at. But eventually, Crawford would find his way.

 “It was a late transition, too,” Crawford said. “I didn’t decide until late September to transfer from Howell to North. [The other coaches] really helped with the transition… It was hard leaving Howell, but I knew I was coming to a great place to work, and I couldn’t have been more excited to be a part of this program.”

 Crawford would go on to use his time at Howell to reshape the girls’ basketball team. He immediately stood out from the other coaches, and it showed at their practices.

 “When you have a group who’s been playing on varsity a while, things can start to get repetitive,” Morgan Smith, team captain of the girls’ basketball team, said. “There’s no negative in that, but Crawford has so many new ideas. He wants to try new things, and it’s really helped us out defensively.”

Crawford was a strongly defensive-minded coach, introducing to the team a new defensive press and answering all the players’ questions about it as he went. However, he also utilized his time at Howell to reshape North’s offense, with motion offense, when an offensive team constantly favors moving off-ball, setting screens, and rotating instead of just favoring one set play.

But Crawford didn’t focus only on the team. He started building connections with the players at the same time. Elise Grimshaw, a player on the girls’ basketball team, noticed this.

 “Whenever we get down or have a long day, he’s the motivator of our team,” Grimshaw said. “He cracks a joke, hypes us up, and just puts our team in a better mood to keep us from getting stuck.”​

And through all of this, Crawford built himself a great start to his coaching career at North. He proved he can push the team to be better, and he uses his previous experience to do it. Now, he’s looking towards the future.

 “This team, with all the new facilities and aspirations that they have, could be right there with all the other tough-to-beat schools in the area,” Crawford said. “I would love to see us host a district championship game like we were able to at Howell. I think it’s something well worth doing here, especially with the great freshman class that we have. We could put together something really special, whether it be this year or the years to come.”

*Editor note: The story was updated with changes to the timeline of Crawford’s time at Francis Howell High School.