North Carolina State University Athletics
Last Man Standing
10/26/2004 12:00:00 AM | Football
Oct. 26, 2004
By Annabelle Vaughan - When Troy Graham heads home to South Florida, he doesn't spend a lot of time with old friends.
He can't - they aren't around. Several are in prison. One is awaiting trial. Others weren't so lucky. They are dead.
So instead, he spends time with his family. Plays with his nieces and nephews. Enjoys his mom's home-cooking. Stays inside to avoid the heat ... because Opalocka, Florida is a pretty hot place.
"They call it the rough neighborhood," says Graham, "but it's not so bad. That's where I grew up - where I had bad times, good times. It's an inner-city area of Miami with a lot of crime and a lot of bad stuff happening in the neighborhoods. But there is also good stuff within that neighborhood that molded me. Both the good and bad molded me and helped me become what I need to be."
NC State's senior free safety laughs ironically when he adds, "It's just like what you see when you turn on the TV and watch a movie ... lot of drugs, rivalries between gangs, dirty cops. That's life there."
Based on appearances, Graham might not have much trouble fitting into that world. He sports the gold `fronts' on his teeth. His arms are colorful with tatoos. On this day, his hair is wrapped up in a doo-rag, his pants are low-slung and baggy. But those outward accoutrements are where the similarities end.
Graham speaks in a soft, strong voice and answers questions clearly and intelligently. He looks you in the eye when he speaks and is always respectiful and polite. He goes to class ... on time. He goes to practice .. on time. He goes to treatment. He turns in assignments. He does everything he is asked to do and is supposed to do, and he does it without complaining. If you ask the coaches, trainers, academic advisors ... or just about anybody associated with the Wolfpack football program, they'll tell you. Troy Graham does the right things.
A strong family and a strong will were the factors that Graham attributes to keeping him on the right path. "It wasn't like my parents wouldn't let me out of the house," he says, "but they warned me to stay away from bad things. You can't help but get into some of it because you see so much of it where I'm from. It's the lifestyle. It becomes a part of you."
So what kept him from crossing the line that so many of his counterparts could not avoid? "My parents had strong discipline," Graham remembers. "If I did bad things, I got in trouble for it. Also, my older brother Anthony had a lot to do with it. I looked up to him a lot - he introduced me to sports and kept me doing what I needed to do to get on track - stay on the ball, stay in school, all those things."
It's been four years since Graham packed his bags, leaving South Florida for practically the first time in his life to move three states and half a world away to college life in North Carolina. But the mean streets of Opalocka are still his roots, even though he looks at them with new eyes now and walks them more as a visitor than as a resident.
"There are some bad memories there that go along with the good ones. Almost every last friend that I grew up with is either locked up right now or something bad has happened to them. Two of them died from gunshot wounds, either gang related or drug related."
Some might say that such a background would leave little chance for a successful future. But watching his friends one by one lose control of their lives and watching a cousin and neighbor die pushed Graham to choose a different path.
"Everybody around me was either in trouble or passing away. I lost a cousin and a neighbor who was real close to me, a father-figure. I went through hardship. And then I realized that I might as well make the most of the opportunity that I had. It didn't make sense for me to go a negative way. I realized I had to do something positive to take away the negatives."
Graham's journey down the right path began on a 100-yard field. "My brother first introduced me to football at the Hialeah Optimist Club," he remembers with a smile. "We used to go out there and watch them play and he told me I might as well sign up. I wasn't too fond of sports - I liked hanging out ... being a troublemaker. But I thought I would try it.
"I was a little runt. I was real skinny. REAL skinny. But they never could catch me. I played running back and there was this play that I used to run, and every time I ran that play I would always score - 50 yards, 70 yards, touchdown."
But it wasn't the thrill of crossing the goalline that made football become Troy Graham's ride out of Opalocka. "That wasn't a factor to me back then. What I loved was seeing the coaches' faces after a game when you had done good. They would take you to go eat or they would treat you. That felt good. I'd never been treated like that before. I thought, `You know, let me stick to this. This isn't so bad.'"
So he stuck with it. He actually got pretty good at it. He started watching football games on television. He started studying the game. He said that he finally "got it." He was playing because he loved the game.
Football was fun, but Graham's dream was to be an artist. "I used to draw a lot and go to art school. I wanted to create portraits and sketches. That's where I thought my future might be.
And then, when he was in 11th grade, Graham's coaches called him in. They sat him down. They dropped a bombshell. "They told me that I had a great shot at going to the next level. They said, `You can go to college and get your degree and still play the sport that you love.' I had never thought about it, but it was like a dream that I didn't even know I had. It motivated me to strive even more to pull up my grades."
Accustomed to sunshine and balmy breezes, when Graham took his official visit to NC State in January of 2000, he brought shorts and a light jacket. While he was in Raleigh, over a foot of snow closed down roads and airports, extending his stay. For the first time in his life, he experienced winter.
That was just the first of many new experiences that would greet Graham when he came north to college. Ruled a partial qualifier, he was eligible to practice with the team his first year on campus, but couldn't compete. It was tough for the homesick freshman - he was far from his family, unable to play the sport he loved, and the calls from home telling him bad news about his friends came all too often. Plus, the academics were much tougher than he expected.
"I remember thinking, `Is this for me?'" he says. "`All the assignments and deadlines ... can I do this?' The work piled up, the football schedule was tough, I had deadlines to meet. But I realized I had to stay focussed. I took a time management course and learned to prioritize my work schedule. I just had a strong will to make it. I had to sit out from football, so I had no choice but to take heed and listen to what people told me to do. If not, I would have been gone.
"I decided that whatever it takes for me to be that person I need to be, I'll do it. If it involves going to class every day, I'll do that. If it involves doing my homework, I'll do that. It's just in me - the commitment that I made to this program as well as to my family is to do right, to stay on track."
Four years later, Graham has done much more. He is lauded by coaches and academic advisors for his work ethic, his determination, his diligence. He has been a steady, constant performer on the field, but more importantly, he has been a shining example off of it. He earned back the year he had to sit out and is competing in his fourth season with the Wolfpack. Next spring, he will become a college graduate. "People thought I wouldn't play football and I proved them wrong. People thought I wouldn't graduate and it's not that it MAY happen," he says proudly, "it WILL happen."
Proving people wrong is not Graham's motivation, but he does want people to know that you can't always judge somebody by appearances. "You have to look into a person and get to know them before you judge them," he says. "I don't need to change who I am to fit in. When I was in high school, I had a Spanish teacher, Mr. Williams, who had dreads and gold teeth. He wasn't like any other teacher you've ever seen, but he was the smartest teacher on the staff. He spoke six different languages and was still in school getting more degrees. He always said, `You can't judge a book by its cover,' and being around him, I learned that you don't have to change for anybody. You can be true to yourself and still know as much as anybody."
Graham isn't sure what his next step will be, but he is quietly confident that it will be one in the right direction. After all, he's been heading that way for years now. If he doesn't take his football skills to the next level, he knows that he has the security of an education. He may join his brother in Alabama and help him establish his business. He doesn't feel pressure, but he does feel an enormous responsibility to succeed. "I have dreams of going pro in football, but it's not a big deal to me because I've got something I can go to to be a success.
"I'm the last man standing," he says. "Everything relies on me. A lot of negative people have always told me that I'll never succeed or make it, but I want to show people who come from where I come from that I can do it, so they can do it too. When I go home, they say I've changed and they're right. I've got a totally different outlook on life. By coming here, it helped mold me to be a man, to be a bigger and better person for my family."
