John Orien Crow (September 7, 1912 – June 21, 1994), sometimes referred to as Oren Crowe, was an

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team wi ...

center Center or centre may refer to: Mathematics *Center (geometry), the middle of an object * Center (algebra), used in various contexts ** Center (group theory) ** Center (ring theory) * Graph center, the set of all vertices of minimum eccentrici ...

who played professionally in the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...

(NFL) for the

Boston Redskins The Washington Commanders, an American football team belonging to the National Football League (NFL), have also played as the Boston Braves, Boston Redskins, Washington Redskins, and Washington Football Team. Founded in 1932, the team has won fi ...

from 1933 to 1934. A

Cherokee The Cherokee (; chr, ᎠᏂᏴᏫᏯᎢ, translit=Aniyvwiyaʔi or Anigiduwagi, or chr, ᏣᎳᎩ, links=no, translit=Tsalagi) are one of the indigenous peoples of the Southeastern Woodlands of the United States. Prior to the 18th century, t ...

, he attended the Haskell Institute—now known as

Haskell Indian Nations University Haskell Indian Nations University is a public tribal land-grant university in Lawrence, Kansas, United States. Founded in 1884 as a residential boarding school for American Indian children, the school has developed into a university operated by t ...

—where he played college football. Crow worked for the Bureau of Indian Affairs for many years, starting in 1933 as a clerical worker in

North Dakota North Dakota () is a U.S. state in the Upper Midwest, named after the indigenous Dakota Sioux. North Dakota is bordered by the Canadian provinces of Saskatchewan and Manitoba to the north and by the U.S. states of Minnesota to the east, So ...

, and rising to become acting Commissioner in 1961, the first Native American to serve as commissioner since Ely S. Parker in 1871.

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* 1912 births 1994 deaths American football centers Boston Redskins players Haskell Indian Nations Fighting Indians football players United States Bureau of Indian Affairs personnel People from Commerce, Oklahoma People from Salem, Missouri Players of American football from Oklahoma Cherokee Nation sportspeople Native American players of American football 20th-century Native Americans {{offensive-lineman-1910s-stub