Randy Smith: Boyd-Crownover Match Up A Great One

  • Tuesday, October 10, 2017
  • Randy Smith
Randy Smith
Randy Smith
I had to write this. Two of the best sports stars in our area will become members of the same team on Nov. 11, when Madison Boyd says, " I do" to Mathew Crownover. Madison was an outstanding softball player at GPS as she played for Susan Crownover, then signed with East Tennessee State and enjoyed a stellar career in Johnson City. Mathew, Coach Susan's son, was a star at Ringgold High School before he signed with Clemson to play baseball.
He was drafted by the Washington Nationals and is currently on the roster of the Nats' class AA farm club in Harrisburg, Pa.  

Now this relationship wasn't a sure thing from the start. It took some persuasion from friends and even Mathew's sister to convince him to ask Madison out. When he did, things began to move and now the couple is a mere month away from their wedding day. 

What makes this match up so ideal? It has really nothing to do with sports, yet it was sports that brought them together. I truly believe this was a match made in Heaven. You see, in 2014, Coach Susan Crownover, who had been battling kidney disease for many years, became very, very sick and needed a kidney transplant, While Susan went through dialysis and waited, family members and friends checked to see if they were a match to donate a kidney. It was Madison's mom Kelley who turned out to be a perfect match and she agreed to donate one of her kidneys to Susan.  The rest as they say, is history. Susan has been completely healthy now for three years and this November when her son and Kelley Boyd's daughter are joined in Holy Matrimony, she will be there to see it. She'll be able to walk down the aisle and take her seat as the mother of the groom and she'll be able to take part in the mother-son dance at the reception. She'll also be around to see her grandchildren when Mathew and Madison become parents. (No pressure here, guys.)

For the past several months things have been moving fast for the couple, yet amazingly slow as they count down the days until the wedding. Mathew just came home from Harrisburg from baseball and Madison has been working on their new home almost as hard as she works at her job in the Cardiac Rehab unit at Memorial Hospital. 

I've known Mathew since he was a nerdy little boy with big glasses, following his mother around the softball field at GPS. I met Madison when I had open heart surgery back in July and now she is among several who take care of me at Cardiac Rehab. Her main job seems to be fussing at me when I miss a workout which seems to be more frequent now that I have returned to work.

I hope they enjoy this time together, meaning the next few weeks before married life kicks in for them. One of the happiest periods of my life came in the few weeks before my wife Shelia and I were married 44 years ago.

So, I wish them all the luck in the world, but I know this will be one of the happiest unions ever. After all, aren't all matches made in Heaven happy ones?

* * *

Randy Smith has been covering sports on radio, television and print for the past 45 years. After leaving WRCB-TV in 2009, he has written two books, and has continued to free-lance as a play-by-play announcer.  His career has included a 17-year stretch as host of the Kickoff Call In Show on the University of Tennessee’s prestigious Vol Network. He has been a member of the Vol Network staff for 30 years. He has done play-by-play on ESPN, ESPN II, CSS, and Fox SportSouth, totaling more than 500 games, and served as a well-known sports anchor on Chattanooga television for more than a quarter-century. In 2003, he became the first television broadcaster to be inducted into the Greater Chattanooga Area Sports Hall of Fame. Randy and his wife Shelia reside in Hixson. They have two married children, Christi and Chris Perry; Davey and Alison Smith. They have five grandchildren, Coleman, Boone, Mattingly, DellaMae, and CoraLee.

 

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