It was the morning of Friday, Aug. 31, 2001. Jack Crowe’s phone was lighting up. TV producers with CNN, Oprah Winfrey, David Letterman, “Live with Regis and Kelly” and “Good Morning America” were on the line. Newspaper editors were calling from throughout the nation — bigwigs with “ESPN The Magazine”, “People” and “Newsweek” were reaching out. The night before, America had fallen in love with one of Coach Crowe’s Jacksonville State football players — and America’s biggest and most famous media outlets wanted her to themselves.
“I love being a cop,” Ashley Martin-Cockrell told me. “When I go out on patrol, I go into game mode. It’s like running out of the tunnel,” said the married mother of three who today is an officer with the Lake Wales, Florida, Police Department.
