How Montevallo became a powerhouse in growing college bass fishing landscape

May 06, 2024

Editor’s note: This is part of a series in which The Athletic highlights offbeat sports you may not have known are contested at the college level. Follow the full series here.

MONTEVALLO, Ala. — Take a left turn at the intersection of Main Street and Shelby Street in the small town of Montevallo, Ala., drive about 500 feet, and there’s a white building resembling a house on the left. Or you just might miss it if you’re driving too fast. It’s an unassuming structure at first glance, but a closer look reveals something much more significant: The base of one of the most dominant college dynasties in the country.

William Crawford’s office is on the second floor, but he has outgrown the space. He notes that a bigger facility is in the works, the next development in keeping the University of Montevallo’s bass fishing program on top. Adjacent to the building are two, large canopy-looking structures. Again, unassuming from the outside, but on any given day according to Crawford, “It can look like a high-priced boat show outside.”

On a rare uneventful June day at Montevallo, the 30-boat stall was almost empty. It comes with chargers at each station and lights above should any anglers want to work on their boats. Crawford says there’s hardly a day when there’s not someone working out there.

“We have what I would say is the most talented group of college anglers in the country,” Crawford said. “All right here, and they’re competing against each other on a daily basis.”

The program’s technology, access and determination have propelled Montevallo into the most rarified air (or water) in the sport: the first program to claim three consecutive Bass Pro Shops School of the Year titles, the equivalent of a national championship.

That distinction means even more in Alabama, where rivals Auburn and Northern Alabama, the 2014 and 2015 champions are consistent, tough rivals.

“State for state, I’d say the schools in the state of Alabama are the most competitive out of anybody in the country,” Crawford said. “Location and the types of fisheries that we have here, (anglers) are exposed to a lot of at a young age. From a recruiting standpoint, we recruit against those guys year in and year out, and then we compete against them year in and year out so, it’s pretty tough.”

Peyton Harris and Dalton Head took home the Major League Fishing national championship. (Courtesy of the University of Montevallo)

In college football terms, collegiate bass fishing in the South is like the SEC, and Montevallo is the program on top. Crawford is the only coach the school has known after it transitioned from a club sport to a school-sanctioned sport in 2015. Per Crawford, Montevallo was one of the first six or seven universities in the country to offer bass fishing scholarships at that time. Present day, there are roughly 40 programs that offer scholarships in some capacity and more than 250 bass fishing programs nationally, including club teams. Crawford’s first team had fewer less than 10 competitors, but that number swelled to 60 this past season.

And like college football, collegiate bass fishing is ever-evolving with new equipment to help anglers catch fish, television deals that are increasing the sport’s visibility and colleges figuring out how to supply the rapidly growing interest in the sport. That begs the question: How did Montevallo become the giant in this space? And how is it continuing to stay ahead of the curve?

Crawford is the director of Montevallo’s Outdoors Scholars Program, which is an initiative by the school that prepares students for professional jobs directly connected to hunting and fishing, a huge recruiting tool. Additionally, the bass fishing program is run similarly to life as a professional angler on a circuit like Bass Pro. Montevallo aggressively seeks sponsors (including Drake Performance Fishing, The Management Advantage, Mossy Oak Fishing and Toyota) to supplement university funding for the program, and Crawford estimates that it costs around $200,000 to field its championship team.

As a result, all 60 of his anglers are on scholarship in some capacity, which attracts the best high school anglers from around the country.

“People don’t realize that professional anglers don’t make a living by the number of tournaments that they win,” Crawford said. “Yes, that’s an added bonus, but they’re getting their paycheck, their guaranteed paycheck, from their sponsors and to help pay for things along the way. I’ve kind of designed our program because I wanted to give our college guys an inside look of what it was like for the professionals because that’s where a lot of them want to end up once they finish school.

“We probably spend close to $200,000 a year. And that’s just a rough estimate of travel, lodging, all that stuff throughout the course of the year. And gas prices have gone up a little bit in the last few years. Hotels have gone up, but that’s why it’s so important for us to fundraise and do what we do so we can keep going at the pace that we want to go.”

The sport never has been more popular at the high school level. Alabama is the highest participating state in the country with more than 400 high school anglers and 300 middle school anglers, according to the Alabama High School Athletic Association. Other states on the rise include Georgia, Florida and Texas.

“My freshman year of high school (2017), most of the tournaments were maybe 75 to 100 boats,” sophomore angler Peyton Harris said. “By the time I graduated (in 2021), most of the tournaments were somewhere around that 200-boat mark. which is huge, especially in Alabama where the lakes aren’t massive.”

But bass fishing is vastly different from sports like basketball, football and baseball. There aren’t official games, AAU or 7-on-7 circuits or highlight films for coaches to break down in recruiting. So, how does the three-time national champion find its players? The answer isn’t simple. In fact, it’s the hardest part of Crawford’s job.

“I have to rely a lot on people that I know, contacts that I’ve made along the way,” Crawford said. “We invite students into campus; it’s almost like a job interview. It’s picking their brain, listening to them talk and kind of get a feel of do I feel like this kid would be a good fit for the program, and sometimes you’re rolling the dice.

“High school fishing is so different from college. In high school, they have an adult or a ‘captain’ is what they call it in the boat for liability purposes. Sometimes these high school kids may go out and hire a pro angler to be in their boat. Well, who’s doing the legwork? Is it the pro angler that says, ‘Look here, throw here, do this and do that,’ and that kid gets all the results? Or is it that kid who has a dad that’s never fished a day in his life sitting out there in the boat, and the kid’s doing everything on his own.”

What Crawford looks for in potential recruits directly correlates to the big picture question: How does an angler catch a fish, especially heavy bass that are coveted at college tournaments? For Montevallo, it’s much more about mental composition than raw skill set.

“I want somebody that’s a very competitive person,” Crawford said. “Somebody that’s going to grind because these guys are out there from daylight to dark five days a week trying to figure out why this fish isn’t biting or finding where fish are at. You may go out there for three or four days and not have any luck, but it’s knowing that I can flip the switch pretty quick.”

Montevallo competes almost year-round on the collegiate bass circuit with most of the tournaments in the fall and spring. Collegiate bass fishing is scored like NASCAR. Three circuits (Bass Master, Collegiate Bass and Major League Fishing) hold tournaments with scores from each compiled throughout the year, and a national champion is crowned at the end of the season.

Like any other sport, Montevallo has a depth chart that determines which anglers get first dibs on a tournament bid. The best boats this past season were high school teammates and Minnesota natives, juniors Nick Dumke and Easton Fothergill, the 2022-23 Bassmaster Team of the Year. Another duo, Harris and fellow sophomore Dalton Head, took home the Major League Fishing national championship this past season.

Crawford said he can see a double-digit number of anglers on his roster reaching the highest level of pro fishing, the Bassmaster Elite Series.

“The guys on this team are insanely good,” Harris said. “To get up on the depth chart, you have to come in and prove yourself, go out and catch them day in and day out. And that’s one of the hardest things to do.

“You have to put in the work, especially if you want to come to Montevallo. These boys around here, every one of them wants it so bad that they’re not just going to let you have (a top spot).”

Tournaments range from one- to three-day events in which teams, in two-man boats, are measured based on the five best catches of the day (in pounds). Teams also get three days to “pre-fish” or scout the locations, and those greatly benefit a large team like Montevallo that can afford to split up anglers between who fishes the best based on freshwater, deep-water, offshore, etc., and also who is missing the most class at that time.

Dalton Head helped Montevallo win its third straight Bass Pro Shops School of the Year title. (Courtesy of the University of Montevallo)

For example, a tournament could span Friday-Saturday with three days of pre-fishing. If the tournament is a long drive (or more than eight hours away), Monday would be considered a travel day, meaning anglers could miss an entire week of classes.

“We had four tournaments in 15 days last season,” Crawford said. “So that was busy; it was just kind of divide and conquer. But I think it’s all about who’s fishing well, who’s hot at the time and how a certain body of water matches the characteristics of how somebody likes to fish.”

The margin for error is extremely low in collegiate bass fishing. Crawford estimates that there are roughly 10 schools annually with the resources to win a Bass Pro Shops School of the Year title. Because of that, and the fact that these schools compete against each other at nearly every meet, one bad performance is enough of a difference to cost a school a chance at the title. But Montevallo’s sheer advantage in roster talent has outweighed the competition and allowed it to build substantial leads throughout the season.

“There was a stretch where we won three major events (on Bassmaster and Collegiate Bass circuits) in two weeks (this past season),” Crawford. “To be able to win three major events back-to-back-to-back is unheard of, but if it was different guys and different groups at different events … we just have a very deep roster. You know how they say in football that someone’s No. 2 guys are just as good as somebody’s starters? That’s kind of the same way here. I would say our top 15 boats (30 anglers), probably anybody in that top 15 for us could probably go and be somebody’s No. 1.”

With its nucleus returning, Montevallo is preparing for a run at a fourth straight national title. To be able to represent the state on this stage is an honor, but for the small college an hour outside of Tuscaloosa, there’s pride in building its own sports dynasty. And it’s providing an alternative outlet to compete in a college sport at the highest level.

“It’s provided an avenue for people that maybe either got burned out in (mainstream) athletics or realized, ‘Hey, I’m 5 feet 4 and 140 pounds, I’m not going to be playing middle linebacker at Alabama,'” Crawford said. “It’s given young people another opportunity to enjoy their passion.”

(Top photo of Payton Harris and Dalton Head courtesy of the University of Montevallo)

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