Last week Bowie Independent School District named Garden City Coach Joe Crabb its newest coach to take over the girl’s basketball program.
A 26-year veteran coaching girl’s high school basketball and amassing 600 plus wins, Crabb’s four year run at Garden City where his teams went 114-17 along with his high character personal reputation around the state were some of the factors that led to his hiring.
Born in Sayre, OK, Crabb graduated from Southwestern Oklahoma State University in 1991 with a bachelor of science in business administration and accounting. In 1993 he added a bachelor of science in education.
Crabb initially was looking to be a football and baseball coach, but could not outrun his family’s legacy.
“My dad and brothers were girl’s basketball coaches in western Oklahoma and had a lot of success up there,” Crabb said. “Just because of who they were when I started looking for a job people wanted me to come coach girls basketball.”
Crabb spent his first three years at Erick High School from 1993-1995. Oklahoma was still playing the six-on-six format during this time as it was the last state to eliminate it.
Crabb then moved on to Silverton out in West Texas, where he coached for three years before moving to Strawn.
At Strawn Crabb was coach for 17 years from 1998-2015. There he raised his family and coached both of his daughters. While five of his teams reached the regional finals during this time, they fell just short of state tournament appearances.
Crabb has been at Garden City the past four seasons. The 2017 team saw one of Crabb’s teams advance to the state tournament for the first time. During his four years the Lady Cats spent many weeks listed amongst the top teams in the state in the several coach’s polls.
One of the attractions to the Bowie job was its proximity to his parents in Oklahoma and his daughters families. Also after 26 years coaching at 1A schools, Crabb has always been intrigued by what it would be like coaching at a bigger school.
“Honestly, that is something I have looked at and people have asked me about a lot and it has really intrigued me to try out,” Crabb said.
Along with the reputation the Bowie girl’s basketball program has around the state Crabb is happy he got the job.
While at Strawn his teams shot a lot of three-pointers since he had a lot of good shooters. At Garden City the shooting was not quite as good, but the size and athleticism were better so his teams concentrated on that.
A staple at both schools has been his team’s use of defensive pressure to disrupt offenses and create scoring opportunities.
“Playing the 1-2-2 and just pressing people,” Crabb said. “Doing some stuff in the half court and causing people a lot of trouble. Making it difficult to score and taking them out of their comfort zone.”

To read the full story, pick up a copy of the mid-week edition of the Bowie News.