By Roscoe Nance
Ted Crews has risen to the top of his profession as vice president, communications with the Kansas City Chiefs. But the South Carolina State graduate hasn’t forgotten where he came from, and he carries the HBCU banner high and proud as he goes about his job.
“It’s an honor and a privilege to represent South Carolina State,’’ says Crews, who started in the public relations field as a student worker in the sports information department and is now one of only 32 people in the world doing what he does.
Crews, who grew up in Columbia, Md., was an English major at South Carolina State. His ambition was to become a TV sportscaster. But following a summer internship at WJZ-TV, a CBS affiliate in Baltimore, he realized that wasn’t what he wanted to do with his life. When he returned to South Carolina State for the fall semester, he met Bill Hamilton, the school’s legendary sports information director, through a family friend.
Wanting to see what Crews could do, Hamilton took him to football coach Willie Jeffries’ weekly press conference and had him write a story. Crews did so well that Jeffries’ press conference became his assignment. When Hamilton was having a difficult time getting members of the football team to open up to him for stories, turned that job over to Crews as well.
“I would go to the dorm and talk to them,” Crews says. “They wouldn’t know it, but I was interviewing them and I would flip the conversations into stories. Mr. Hamilton said, ‘you realize this is a profession?,’ which I didn’t.”
All Crews knew was he enjoyed it. When he attended a Carolina Panthers game with Hamilton, it dawned on him that he could make it a career. There he met Bruce Speight, a Howard University graduate who was an assistant in the Panthers’ public relations department, and Charlie Dayton, the communications director.
“That’s when I realized it was a job,” Crews says. “It was almost love at first sight.”
JOURNEY FROM INTERN TO PR EXEC
Crews interned two summers with the Panthers. During the school year, he would work South Carolina State’s games on Saturday and drive to Charlotte and work Panthers games on Sunday. He followed that routine for two years. After he graduated from South Carolina State in 1998, he was supposed to have a season-long internship with the Panthers. However, one of the assistants left unexpectedly and Dayton hired him full-time.
Crews stayed with the Panthers for seven years before he joined the Atlanta Falcons as an assistant in 2005. In 2009, the St. Louis Rams hired him to run their public relations department, and in 2012 he joined the Chiefs. He received the 2017 Salute to Excellence Award from the Fritz Pollard Alliance for his work with the Chiefs.
To go from being an unassuming student worker writing feature stories on college athletes to being a member of a select group of PR executives is quite a ride. Crews is ever mindful of that, and the fact that prior to the 2018 NFL season, two South Carolina State grads were among the NFL’s 32 communications directors—Avis Roper was director of communications for the Indianapolis Colts before joining FOX Sports as senior director of communications.
“It’s kind of crazy,” Crews says. “Two of 32 are from South Carolina State. Then when you put all the other brothers in it, it’s a fraternity within a fraternity because all of the PR guys are pretty close. The brothers, we hang together. For my university and for Mr. Hamilton, the man who introduced me to my job, I wear the (HBCU) badge with pride. I tell people the NFL is a long way from Orangeburg, but I never felt that way because Mr. Hamilton was so good at his job.
“He always instilled in me that if I worked at it I would get a shot, and I did. It’s a great honor. It’s a great privilege. When people ask me where I went to school, it’s a conversation. There are people who aren’t familiar with HBCUs and people who never heard of South Carolina State. It’s a great conversation to have, and I love it having.”
Note: This is the fourth in a series on HBCU graduates who run PR for pro sports teams. Our last piece was on Carolina Panthers manager of social engagement and alumni affairs Bruce Speight. We also did a piece on Redskins vice president for public relations Tony Wyllie and our first piece was on Cavs PR man BJ Evans.