by John Y. Wehmueller | Staff Writer
Avery Graham was a sprinter; a 6-foot, 180-pounder who had been a sprinter his entire track life. Until one day last spring at a Clarksburg practice, when he picked up a shot, ‘‘messing around,” and put it 47 feet, far enough to have qualified for the Class 2A state championships.
It was the kind of moment that leads Graham’s football coach, Larry Hurd, to describe the junior as ‘‘a tremendous athlete, in everything,” and his track coach, Scott Mathias, to say, ‘‘on pure physical talent, he’s a freak.” Graham is also a high jumper, planned to play basketball for the Coyotes until he found out they had an indoor track team, and at some point in his life has played just about every position on a football field.
On March 28, the University of Maryland became the first school to offer Graham a full football scholarship. It likely won’t be the last.
‘‘He’s pound-for-pound maybe the strongest kid I’ve ever coached,” Mathias said. ‘‘He can do anything he tries to do.”
Versatile
At the 2A state indoor meet in February, Graham won championships in both the 55-meter dash and shot put. That speed-strength double whammy is virtually unprecedented at this level. The only comparable athlete going is Surrattsville High senior Davin Meggett. The son of former NFL star David Meggett has signed to play football at Maryland, but even he only finished third in the 55 and second in the shot in Class 1A.
No surprise, then, that the Terrapins are after Graham as well, and Hurd said other programs are sniffing around, too. Yet he has only one season of high-school football under his belt. He was an All-Gazette honorable mention — appropriately enough, at all-around — despite not hitting his stride until late last fall.
‘‘I was experienced in all kind of positions, but never at the high-school level,” Graham said. ‘‘I didn’t know any plays or anything like that. I just took it game after game, practice after practice, and the coaches saw the progression. ... I had to learn four different positions, but I didn’t care if I played center. As long as I could help the team out.”
He came on late in the season at running back, finishing as the team’s second-leading rusher with 741 yards and averaging 8.2 yards per carry as the team went 10-0 in the regular season and reached the Class 2A state semifinals. The 6-foot, 180-pound Graham scored 10 rushing touchdowns and added two on kickoff returns, one of 84 yards and another of 90.
‘‘It was just, ‘Let me get more,’” Graham said. ‘‘I got touchdowns, I want more. I got tackles, I want more. I was just really greedy.”
Driven
Graham wants it all in college, too. He wants to play football and run track. He wants a good animal science program, so he can be a veterinarian. He took an unofficial visit to College Park last week, and will make the circuit of camps and combines this summer. He should have no trouble qualifying academically.
‘‘He’s the type of kid who hates to do less than his personal best,” Hurd said. ‘‘I’m looking at his grades, it’s all As and Bs, and he’s saying, ‘That B could have been an A.’ ...
‘‘There was a time during the season when he got called for a facemask penalty and was very upset. I pulled him out and said, ‘What’s going on?’ His response was perfect. ‘Coach, you tell us that every time you get a penalty, it hurts the team, and I just got a penalty.’ What could I say?”
Graham knows exactly where his drive comes from: Baltimore. His freakish athletic talent was a way out of the inner city, where he grew up impoverished and fatherless. When he could so easily have used that as an excuse to do wrong, he did everything right.
‘‘I was fortunate; my mom [Janice] is a special lady,” Graham said. ‘‘But I never had a father there. I didn’t really know how to be a man. I wanted to explore more. I didn’t know what to expect; I didn’t know what happened if you did good in school. I was kind of just experimenting.”
He kept his grades up. He joined an AAU track club, and made it his mission to train harder than whoever was training the hardest. His AAU coaches saw Graham’s potential, and his drive, and gave him the break he needed. He moved in with a coach’s brother, Eric Bettinger, in Clarksburg last school year, and set about making his mark.
Mathias said Graham bench-presses over 300 pounds, close to twice his weight. Hurd said he runs a 40-yard dash in 4.3 seconds and can stand flat-footed under a 10-foot rim and dunk a basketball. Within weeks of his arrival, Coyote coaches were slavering over him.
But he got off to a late start. He transferred too late to play football in the fall. A hip flexor bothered him during the winter and spring of his sophomore year, limiting his impact. Graham is currently undergoing physical therapy; his left hip sits lower than his right, and doctors are gradually bringing them into alignment. If it hadn’t been for his hips, he might also have run, and won, the 300 meters this past indoor season.
‘‘I don’t think I’ve proved myself enough,” Graham said. ‘‘I don’t want average times. I want the best times.”
The injuries delayed Graham’s impact and kept him under the radar. In Mathias’ opinion, they may also have fanned his competitive flames; Graham had to take it easy at the 2A West Region meet, which ‘‘made him mad,” Mathias said, for states. When the breakout performance came, it was no surprise to those at Clarksburg.
‘‘He can just walk into the weight room sometimes, and you say, ‘Wow,’” Hurd said. ‘‘I’ve been around for a while now, and he does things I’ve never seen a high school kid be able to do.”
Unique
It’s not just the rare physical ability, though. Graham has the magnetism, the aura, of someone special.
‘‘He’s got such a strong personality, he kind of wins people over,” Mathias said. ‘‘People naturally want to follow him. Whether he wants to play that role or not, it comes to him. If he’s leading, everybody follows.”
A lot of that is his innate determination. It’s the part of his character that helped him master organized football in the course of 13 weeks. It’s the part of his character that won him a state title in the shot less than a year after he first lifted one.
It’s the part of his character that raised him up from an inner city’s doldrums to an athlete of incredible potential, without anyone to show him the way. Just because that’s the way he is.
‘‘I don’t consider myself special at all; I’m just trying to be like everybody else, trying to make a living,” Graham said. ‘‘I really didn’t come from anything. I just want more, because I never had anything. I have a big imagination. I want to fulfill my imagination.”
