He served as the head football coach at Northeast Missouri State University—now known as Truman State University—in Kirksville, Missouri from 1979 to 1982 and Western Illinois University in Macomb, Illinois and he from 1983 to 1989, compiling a career college football coaching record of 65–54–1.
He was a guest coach for the Saskatchewan Roughriders of the Canadian Football League (CFL) from 1979 to 1982.
Craddock was named head football coach at Western Illinois University in 1982.
[1] Craddock died on February 22, 1990, aged 46, after a 10-month battle against cancer in a Macomb, Illinois hospital.
Physicians linked the cancer to his exposure to Agent Orange during the Vietnam War, where he was a United States Marine Corps captain from 1967 to 1970.