Chattahoochee Valley Sports Hall of Fame: Eddie Lowe didn't see his size as a disadvantage; neither did his opponents

The 1982 University of Alabama football media guide lists starting linebacker Eddie Lowe as 5-foot-11, 190 pounds.

You want to hear someone laugh, read that to Jeremiah Castille, Lowe's former teammate at Central High School and Alabama.

"If Eddie's 5-11," Castille said through the laughter, "then I am 7-foot."

Throughout Lowe's entire football career that started at South Girard Junior High School and ended with nine seasons in the Canadian Football League and a spot in the Saskatchewan Roughriders ring of honor, he was measured not by his 5-foot-8 frame, but by his heart and his work ethic.

"If he were bigger, it wouldn't have been fair," said his high school coach Wayne Trawick.

On Saturday, Lowe will be honored for his career as he enters the Chattahoochee Valley Sports Hall of Fame. Lowe and his brother, Woodrow, become the second set of brothers to be inducted into the Hall of Fame. Golfers Billy and Jack Key were inducted in 1999 and 2000, respectively.

Woodrow Lowe, a former University of Alabama and NFL player who is in the College Football Hall of Fame, was inducted into the local hall in 1998.

Eddie Lowe is in the 2015 class that includes Columbus High and University of North Carolina football player John Flournoy, minor league baseball manager Dennis Holmberg and local amateur golfers Wright Waddell and Carter Mize.

Ask Lowe about his size and he will tell you it was -- at times -- an advantage.

"What I realized was at the point of contact, you can whip anybody," Lowe said recently. "It is just like a bullet. A bullet is small, but with speed and quickness, look at what it does to you. If you are explosive -- and I worked on that -- you can whip anybody."

The foundation

If being small wasn't tough enough, Lowe was also Woodrow's little brother. By the time Eddie reached Central High School in the mid-1970s, his big brother was finishing an Alabama career in which he became the only three-time All-America player Bear Bryant ever coached. Woodrow played for 11 seasons in the NFL for the San Diego Chargers and cast a lengthy shadow at 6-foot, 225 pounds.

"I think there is no doubt Eddie looked up to Woodrow as a player and a person," Trawick said.

And Woodrow and older brother, James, had set the standards by which a Lowe would be measured.

"By the time I came along, James had already set the expectations and they were high," Woodrow said. "And after me, that trickled down to Eddie. But the work ethic and the temperament all came from our daddy."

Eddie, six years younger than Woodrow, was determined to forge his own path on the football field.

"A lot of people probably think because of the success he had it was easier for me," Lowe said. "I can tell you that is totally not true. Woodrow could not run one wind sprint for me."

Bobby Wright was a young assistant coach on Trawick's Central staff when Eddie Lowe got to high school.

"We talked all the time and he would tell me how much he respected his brother," Wright said. "Now, they used to box all the time."

Trawick remembers those bouts.

"It was like two mules kicking each other," Trawick said.

It became obvious by the time he reached Central High School, Eddie Lowe was a good football player. And at the foundation was his workout routine that followed him into college and pros.

"He was phenomenal," Wright said. "The epitome of an athlete to me.

'I was young when I started coaching. Coach Trawick got me over here and he was the best athlete I had seen at the time.

"I call it the 'X' factor. He loved to practice -- and not many kids loved to practice.

He loved to watch film. He loved to work out.

He was even physical in the weight room. I believe the weights were scared of him."

Lowe's workouts were legendary.

Five times a week, he would run the 5 miles from his home in south Phenix City to the high school on Railroad Street.

There he would work out with weights.

When that was done, Lowe would run the mile up Stadium Drive to Idle Hour Park, where he would take two laps around Moon Lake.

Trawick gave Lowe a key to Garrett Stadium, where Lowe would go next.

"I ran the steps -- hit every one the first time, skip every other one the second time," Lowe remembered.

Then it was down to the field for sprints.

"I ran 10, 100s; 8, 80s; 6, 60s; 4, 40s; 2, 20s," Lowe said.

But he wasn't done -- not by a long shot.

"I would go back down to Moon Lake and run around that twice," Lowe said.

"Then I'd walk back up to the stadium and run home. Nobody had to tell me to work out. I would run and lift, run and lift and run and run."

At times Woodrow, already an established pro player, would work out with his little brother.

"He would run me into the ground," Woodrow remembered.

Undersized high school star

Just like his big brother, Lowe became a star linebacker at Central, a player opposing coaches schemed to stop and one that teammates feared when it came time to practice.

Phil Elder was Central's defensive coordinator.

"I remember coaching meetings before practice and Coach Trawick was concerned about Eddie," Elder remembered. "He would say we have to hold Eddie back. He was concerned about him hurting our running backs."

Rod Hinton, also an assistant coach on those Central teams, remembers it this way.

"Anthony Miles was Eddie's best friend and Eddie used to beg us to send AG across the middle in practice," Hinton said. "They loved each other, but when you put those pads on, it didn't matter. He wanted everybody to know, you did not come across the middle."

And all you had to do was look at the game film to figure it out.

"You couldn't watch anybody else," Wright said.

Ask Trawick, he was talking to the opposing coaches.

"Jeff Davis coach Charles Lee once told me they worked harder trying to scheme to block Eddie Lowe than any other linebacker they ever played," Trawick said.

Lowe's philosophy was simple.

"I knew I was small as a linebacker," he said.

"I went into every game with the mentality, they are going to run right at me because they are going to look at my size.

"What I have to do, is as quick as I can, create doubt."

And he created that doubt with force, said his junior high and high school coach Howard Walker.

"If you were in his way, he would go through you," Walker said. "He didn't go around you. He went right through you."

Lowe was an Alabama High School Athletic Association all-state player, but that didn't matter when it came time to sign a college scholarship.

He was told he was too small to play big-time college football.

"When the college coaches used to come around, I would tell Eddie to wear those high-heeled shoes they wore back then and long pants," Trawick said.

Not even that helped.

"Alabama didn't want me because of my size," Lowe said.

"Auburn didn't want me because of my size. I got mad at Alabama and wanted to go to Auburn to get back at Alabama. I always believed I could play. I don't let anyone rent space in my head."

So Lowe took what was offered, a full ride to Tennessee-Chattanooga, a small school in the shadows of the Southeastern Conference powers.

But he didn't take the offer without making one last statement. And he made it in Bryant-Deny Stadium during the North-South high school all-star game just before reporting to Chattanooga.

"They changed their minds when they saw me play that day," Lowe said.

"I had never played strong safety in my life -- and they put me at strong safety. You ask Coach Trawick about it."

Trawick remembers it well.

"If he hadn't already signed with Chattanooga, he would have signed with somebody else," Trawick said. "He was dominating."

And he was on the field with players who were on their way to bigger schools.

"Everybody who went to Alabama and Auburn was in that game," Lowe said. "The only thing I knew was I wanted to play football. I never thought I was small. I knew I could play. You are either going to knock my head off or I am going to knock your head off."

Sweet Home Alabama

In the fall of 1978, Lowe went to Tennessee-Chattanooga, where he started as a freshman. But his heart was in Tuscaloosa.

Lowe asked Tennessee-Chattanooga Coach Jim Morris for his release, and it was granted.

He got to Tuscaloosa in January 1979 without a scholarship.

Elder, Lowe's high school defensive coordinator, remembers his reaction when he heard what Lowe was doing.

"I remember saying, 'What are you talking about, you ain't going back to Chattanooga?' I can't remember the whole conversation, but he said he was going to walk on at Alabama," Elder said.

"I didn't say this to him, but I knew recruiters said he was too small and too slow to play linebacker."

Trawick responded to the news another way.

"To tell you the truth, I was kind of proud of him," Trawick said. "I knew he could do it."

Woodrow knew his brother had made the right decision.

"I told someone in Tuscaloosa, that he wasn't that big, but they would know when he got there," Woodrow Lowe said.

"They made a mistake not signing him."

By the time he got to Alabama and had to sit out a year, it was a good thing Lowe loved to practice, because that was all he had.

Shortly after Lowe got to Tuscaloosa, Castille joined him, signing a scholarship with Alabama after he graduated from Central in 1979.

Castille said Lowe quickly earned a reputation during his red-shirt season.

"They thought he was crazy -- I mean crazy," Castille said. "They did not mess with Eddie Lowe. I am telling you. I seen it with my own eyes."

Lowe earned respect and even a little apprehension when it came to lining up against him.

"Dwight Stephenson was probably the best center to ever play the game," Castille said.

Stephenson, at 6-foot-2, 255 pounds, was a senior All-American player when Lowe got to Alabama and ended up in the Pro Football Hall of Fame after his career with the Miami Dolphins.

"Dwight did not like to practice against Eddie," Castille said.

"He would come back into the huddle and use more four-letter words than you ever heard when he had to block Eddie."

And it wasn't just Stephenson. Lowe did not care who he had to hit to make an impression.

During one practice, Lowe hit star running back Major Ogilvie.

"I believe you play like you practice," Lowe said. "I tried to lay the wood to him. It don't matter. We were playing football."

That is not how Bryant and Coach Mal Moore saw it.

"Coach Moore started screaming at Eddie -- just screaming at him," Castille said. "I can hear him hollering, 'You hit him again and I am going to make you run til your nose bleeds.' He was furious."

Bryant sent Lowe to the locker room.

When the practice was over, Lowe was still sitting in the locker room in his uniform crying like a baby, Castille said.

"He wanted to practice that bad," Castille said. "That is what separated Eddie from everybody else."

There was also a method to Lowe's madness.

"He was sending a message to Coach Bryant and every single player on that team -- I am not your regular walk-on," Castille said.

They got the message. And so did the other teams. By the time his red shirt season was over, Lowe had a scholarship and earned playing time all three years he was eligible at Alabama.

Castille remembers one game against Mississippi State on the road. Lowe doesn't like to talk about his outstanding plays, but he knows who will.

"Ask Jeremiah, he'll tell you," Lowe said.

A fullback made the mistake of coming across the middle on Lowe.

"Have you ever heard lightning hit something?" Castille said. "That is what it sounded like."

It busted the Mississippi State player's face mask.

"I honestly thought he had killed somebody," Castille said.

Lowe became the only player in Alabama's rich football history to start his career as a walk-on and end it as a permanent captain.

"Coach Bryant loved him," Castille said. "I remember in a team meeting one day, Coach Bryant said if he had a team full of Eddie Lowes he would win more games."

Too small once again

With his Alabama career done, Lowe played in the Senior Bowl in Mobile, Ala. On the day of the game, he got a telegram from Bryant. It read: "Congratulations. I am proud of you. Always show class."

"I was supposed to have talked to Coach Bryant about what direction I should go as far as NFL or USFL," Lowe said.

"He went in the hospital that Monday after the Senior Bowl and died that Tuesday."

Instead, Lowe was a pall barer at Bryant's funeral.

Lowe believed he could play in the NFL, but size again was holding him back.

Woodrow Lowe, about halfway through his pro career, believes his brother could have played in the NFL.

"He could have been a strong safety," Woodrow Lowe said.

"You got Donnie Shell, who played a lot of years for the Pittsburgh Steelers, and he wasn't much bigger than Eddie."

During the Senior Bowl, Eddie Lowe's pro career took a northern detour when he was noticed by the Saskatchewan coaching staff.

He didn't know where it was or anything about the CFL.

"They offered me a contract and I went up there," Lowe said.

The Roughriders paid him $53 for that rookie season in 1983.

He carried the same work ethic and attitude that made him successful at Central, Tennessee-Chattanooga and Alabama.

"I spent nine years with the same team," Lowe said. "I missed one game in nine years. One practice in nine years and they had to hide my equipment."

His CFL bubble gum card, list him as "import," but Saskatchewan became a second home.

"You don't stay with one team in Canada if you are not producing," Lowe said. "I left a legacy and mark up there."

He did that everywhere he played and has carried that over to his professional career as a banker with CB&T Russell County and civic leader in hometown of Phenix City, where he is the city's first black mayor and has been the president of the city school board.

Walker, Lowe's former junior high coach, remembers a conversation the two men had a few years back.

"Eddie told me once his one desire was to live on 10 and give 90," Walker said.

"He is a good man. A good product from a good mama and daddy. Mama Lowe is dead now, but Brother James isn't. Eddie is a living tribute to them."

Lowe's success was almost predictable -- and even his junior high coach could see it.

"I would have been surprised if he wasn't successful," Walker said. "And that's because of his morality and his work ethic."

This story was originally published February 14, 2015 at 6:13 PM with the headline "Chattahoochee Valley Sports Hall of Fame: Eddie Lowe didn't see his size as a disadvantage; neither did his opponents."