 
In his eighth year as an assistant coach, Crutchfield has become an integral part of the Long Beach State coaching staff. He has played and coached the game of volleyball for over 35 years, both on the beach and indoors. A lifelong Long Beach resident and avid supporter of 49er Volleyball, he brings boundless enthusiasm and attention to detail along with his knowledge of playing and coaching the game. For seven seasons prior to joining Alan Knipe's staff in 2001, Crutchfield was the head coach of the Wilson High School's Varsity program, where he also taught U.S. History, World History, Career Guidance and Criminal Law. While teaching and coaching at Wilson he wrote the curriculum for Career Guidance for the Long Beach Unified School District, served as faculty president and was twice selected as Teacher of the Year by the student body. Prior to that he served as the head varsity coach at Servite High School and began his high school coaching career at Santa Monica High School in 1989 serving on a staff alongside the legendary Butch May and Olympic Gold Medalist Eric Sato. A graduate of USC, undergraduate (B.S., 1975) and law school (Juris Doctor, 1978), Crutchfield practiced full time as a trial attorney until 1993. He currently serves as a legal consultant for the law office of Bradon C. Bodnar in Long Beach. While still practicing law full time, Crutchfield began coaching boy's club volleyball in 1990 and since then has taken twelve teams to the Junior Olympics winning the National Championship Gold Medal in 2002 and the Bronze Medal in 2005. Five of his former players (Dustin Watten, Dan Alexander, Josh Riley, Nick MacRae and Cody Watten) are now playing at Long Beach State. Crutchfield is currently the head coach of the Riptides South Bay 18 Orange Team. In addition to his high school, club and LBSU coaching experience, Crutchfield has been selected to serve as head coach for the USA Volleyball Regional Camps in Long Beach and Ohio, served as an assistant coach for the National Youth A-2 Team at the Olympic Training Center in Colorado Springs, Colo., and has also served for 10 years as coach for the USA Volleyball High Performance and Youth National Camps and Regional Tryouts in California. Crutchfield has also assisted Knipe at each of his outstanding summer volleyball camps since 1998 and has served as co-head coach at Knipe's Long Beach and Las Vegas volleyball camps since 2005. Crutchfield lives in Long Beach with Kelly, his wife of 20 years, and his 19-year-old son, Troy. Troy is an accomplished volleyball player having won the gold medal in 2002, silver medal in 2003 and bronze medal in 2005 at the Junior Olympics. In 2005, he was one of 25 players selected for the 16-and-Under National Team and received all-league recognition for three consecutive years on the Wilson High School volleyball team. He is currently the starting libero at Long Beach City College and plans to transfer to Long Beach State and play volleyball for The Beach. Outside of volleyball, Crutchfield has developed quite a following for his other passion: playing guitar and singing at numerous clubs and restaurants throughout the southland--both as a solo artist and with many other outstanding local musicians. |
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