In Texas, football is king and feels more like a religion. On Friday nights, thousands of fans pack million-dollar stadiums to watch their local schools battle for supremacy. For Maxx Crosby, playing in front of huge crowds became second nature until he got to Eastern Michigan.
Maxx Crosby’s Texas Beginnings Paved the Way to Greatness
The Colleyville Heritage High School stadium seats a capacity of 9,100. Those crowds were the rule, never the exception. For example, Legacy Stadium in Katy, Texas, cost 70 million dollars to build. Similarly, the Allen High football stadium fits 18,000 fans and cost 59 million dollars.
Just 22 miles from Dallas, you just know that Colleyville would also spare no expense to fund a quality stadium. As a result, by the time Crosby reached the Eastern Michigan Eagles, playing big crowds did not faze him.
Crosby struggled to gain national attention. In all honesty, a defensive end with just six sacks in 18 high school games doesn’t really jump off the page. Teams didn’t beat down the door to sign a rail-thin, 132nd-best strong-side defensive end.
However, Ypsilanti held an added bonus for Crosby. He was born in Lapeer, Michigan, just 59 miles from Detroit. The majority of his family calls Michigan home, so EMU fit everything the future Pro Bowl pass rusher would want. The marriage of college and athlete, in the end paid off for both involved parties.
Eastern Michigan Is the Siberia of the MAC
Despite just a 36-mile separation, EMU and Detroit may as well sit 5,000 miles apart. Worse, the football program didn’t just lose. The lost for decades. The school can only claim two bowl victories: the 1987 California Bowl and, after Crosby left, the 2022 Famous Idaho Potato Bowl.
Since their introduction into FBS, back in 1975, the Eagles possess just ten winning seasons. The program also lost at least ten games, ten times in the last half-century.
The culture of losing did not seem to matter to Crosby as playing FBS football as a two-star recruit seemed more important. And today, EMU remains at the bottom of the MAC. Their 2025 24/7 Sports recruiting ranks them as the 105th team in FBS.
Crosby competed in front of more people during his high school run than he did at Eastern Michigan. Crosby played thirty-seven collegiate games from 2016-2018. Over the same period, he played in front of fewer than 20 thousand fans eighteen times.
Years after leaving school, the Eagles still fail to draw fans to the stadium. Last season, EMU ranked 117th in average attendance with 15,489 attendees. Years before that, they ranked 117th over a five-year period, with 12,708 on average.
Last year, Crosby donated $1 million to upgrade the EMU stadium and other athletic facilities. The field, now dubbed Crosby Field, serves as a reminder that a school which gave a chance to a player that few, if any other FBS schools would extend.
EMU head coach Chris Creighton, who also coached Crosby, praised his former player via the “Eastern Echo” newspaper.
“At the lowest point—and we had a low one here—you bounced back, you just said it to everybody you never quit, that’s what believing is; never quitting or giving up and obsessed with being your best. As we unveil Crosby Field, it is Rachel and Maxx Crosby who have done it together, and it has not been easy. You are the epitome of who we are and what we want to be.”
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Crosby just cashed in again with a nine-digit extension as he hopes to lead the Raiders back to national relevance.
At heart, he still bleeds EMU green. Regardless of the half-filled stadium and on-field struggles, Eastern Michigan and its most famous player fight with that dogged determination that embodies the program and the player. Crosby echoed those sentiments in a 2014 interview.
“No other team came out towards me like Eastern Michigan did towards me. I went to their camp, and they offered me there… Eastern offered (in June), so I waited a month to see if I would get any more offers and I didn’t get any, so I committed there.”
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