Byrd Crudup

Byrd D. Crudup was an American football and basketball coach and college athletics administrator. He served as the head football coach at the North Carolina College for Negroes—now known as North Carolina Central University in Durham, North Carolina—from 1929 to 1931, Dillard University in New Orleans, Louisiana from 1935 to 1940, and at Johnson C. Smith University in Charlotte, North Carolina from 1946 to 1949. Crudup was also head basketball coach at North Carolina Central for one season, in 1927–28. He was an active member of Rho Phi Chapter, Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc when he was the football coach at Dillard University.

Crudup was born on September 15, 1897, in Edenton, North Carolina, to Byrd Crudup and Delia Stark Crudup. He graduated from Rindge Manual Training School in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Crudup played college football at Lincoln University in Oxford, Pennsylvania. He was named to the All-Colored Intercollegiate Athletic Association (CIAA) team in 1923 and 1924 and was captain of the 1924 Lincoln Lions football team, which won the CIAA title and a black college football national championship.

Crudup graduated from Lincoln with an A.B. degree in 1925 and earned Master of Education degree from Boston University in 1939. He also did additional studies at Boston University and Harvard University.