College football player and former Sedona Red Rock High School football Head Coach Jim “Cro” Cromartie died on Aug. 5. at the age of 82. The announcement was made on the University of New Mexico’s website.
He is survived by his wife, Pam; two daughters, Tannah and Tiffany; and his son, Stan, from a prior marriage.
Starting in 2000, Cromartie spent six seasons at SRRHS as the school’s football coach, retiring after the 2005 season. Prior to that, he helped lead the University of New Mexico to its first bowl game win in the 1961 Aviation Bowl as the quarterback.
“Cromartie’s name still dots many UNM top-10 lists despite ending his Lobo career over 60 years ago,” the UNM website states. “His 18 wins as a quarterback is still second all-time in school history, topped only by Casey Kelly’s 19 wins. Cromartie was UNM’s leading passer all three of his seasons, and his 84-yard touchdown pass for Herb Bradford against UTEP was a school record at the time and is still tied for the eighth-longest pass in school history. In addition to his play at quarterback, Cromartie led the team in interceptions as a defensive back in both 1960 and 1962.”
“He had coached high school for a bunch of years and I came from Miami, Florida, and we met up here [in Sedona] by accident,” friend and colleague Rob Lezcano said. “We became friends and we coached together at the high school. His teams were successful teams, the only successful teams the program had … He built a great program here, he had a lot of friends and everybody loved him. He was just a great person in general. He put the football program on the map here in Sedona.”
Season 2004 and 2005 SRRHS football player Daniel Wyatt said that Cromartie focused on discipline with workouts before and after practice.
His former players on the SRRHS football team referred to him as Cro and described him as “an oldschool type of guy.”
“He installed in that program a discipline that we never really had,” Daniel’s older brother and teammate Tommy Wyatt said. “He held us accountable to a higher standard. He expected the best version of you that you could possibly be. He didn’t really have to say much. He just had that air about him he led by example.”
That discipline was constantly put to the test, especially in games against Phoenix-area schools whose players frequently dwarfed the SRRHS squad.
“In [Cromartie’s] pregame speeches, hewould always talk about ‘It’s going to be a battle, it’s going to be a war, but having heart and being tough and coming back every play is how we’re gonna get through it and how we’re going to win the game,” Tommy Wyatt said. “One thing he made the team do was wear midcalf socks,” Daniel Wyatt said. “Some of the players didn’t like it, but it turned into [a] thing we’d joke about. He was kind of oldschool about uniforms and being on time.”
Tommy Wyatt played running back until his sophomore year at SRRHS, when Cromartie informed him he was going to be wearing number 10 and would start taking snaps as quarterback.
“I remember the first snap I took during practice,” Tommy Wyatt said. “But also that first snap [in a game]. We were in the red zone, I took the snap and I threw an interception … I came back on the sideline and [Cromartie] stared at me and then put his hand on my helmet and assured me. ‘Don’t worry, there’s more of that to come. We’ll push through this and you’re our guy.’ We had this reassurance [that] even when things went bad, he’d … get in your face but it was always moving forward, it was moving past it. ‘Okay, how do we deal with it now?’”
“He was proud and happy of his achievements in football, [and]in everything that he’s done,” Daniel Wyatt said. “But getting into freshman year, it was kind of nervewracking.He [had] a big name in Sedona. He did a lot for the school, so getting to know him and getting to play with him was an honor. He’s not intimidating. He’s really, really warm and welcoming, he just knows his stuff about football. It was a really exciting time to get to play for him.”
Jim and Pam Cromartie would host dinners at their house or at one of the assistant coaches’ houses on Thursday nights to go over the film of previous games. Memories of Pam’s spaghetti and those nights when Coach Cro was at his most relaxed hold a special place for Daniel Wyatt.
Pam described her first meeting with Jim as the result of happenstance. She was working for a photographer who was doing a photoshoot of the University of New Mexico football team, which Cromartie was coaching. The meeting would lead to 54 years of marriage.
“He was very handsome, and he was a gentleman of the old school and he was a football coach, and I love football. So [it] seemed like a match made in heaven,” Pam Cromartie said.
“He was truly a student of the game. After he died, I cleaned out his desk and I discovered that he’d been working on a new offense,” she added. “He was getting it all drawn up and everything, still [after all these years]. He was also a man who really loved young people, not just football players. He loved teaching, he had high expectations of his students and his players. He thought that the best way to get the best out of those students and players was to encourage them and help them to see how they could overcome obstacles, whether it be in the classroom or on the football field.”
Tommy Wyatt vividly remembers the last game he played for Cromartie, one that the team ended up losing.
“I just gave [Cromartie] a huge hug,” Tommy Wyatt said. “He told me I had a bright future and I took a knee at the 50-yard line and just soaked it and cried a bit. I didn’t realize it was coming to an end until that happened and then you go ‘wow’ [and] it just kind of all hits you at once.”
