North Carolina State University Athletics
Graham's Crazy Day
3/11/2011 12:00:00 AM | Track
March 11, 2011
2011 NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships
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RALEIGH, N.C. - NC State sophomore T.J. Graham isn't traveling to Texas to take second place. He's looking to win one, if not both, of the events he is participating this weekend at the NCAA Indoor Track and Field Championships in College Station, Texas.
Graham, the NC State wide receiver turned sprinter, ran an automatic qualifying time of 20.79 in the 200-meter dash two weekends ago at the ACC Championships, finishing second to defending ACC champion Maurice Mitchell of Florida State and earning his way to the NCAA event.
He also ran a 6.62 in the 60-meter dash, which did not hit the automatic qualifying time of 6.60, but was one of the top 10 times posted in the country this season. So he was added to the 18-runner field for the championships, held Friday and Saturday at Texas A&M's Gilliam Indoor Track Stadium at the McFerrin Athletics Center.
Friday, he will participate in the preliminaries for the 60 at 6:45 p.m. and the 200 at 7:45 p.m. The finals, should he advance are Friday at 9:10 p.m. in the 200 and Saturday at 7:10 p.m. in the 60. Teammate Ryan Hill will compete in the 3,000 meter race on Saturday.
"Friday's going to be a crazy day," Graham said.
It was the outcome in the ACC 60-meter race that has motivated Graham for this weekend.
The Raleigh native believes he clipped Mitchell at the wire, but the electronic timing system clocked Mitchell at 6.613 and Graham at 6.617, a difference of four milliseconds. Graham didn't even know until he went to the podium that he had finished second in the race.
"That left a bitter and sour taste in my mouth," Graham said. "I hate silver right now. I'm allergic to it. I want a gold medal.
"At the same time, I'm excited about the time and the fact that I qualified for nationals, in two events. It's like making it to a BCS Bowl game. It's a pretty big deal."
Regardless of his performance this weekend, Graham's success this winter on the indoor track has been remarkable. A two-time NC High School Athletic Association champion as a senior at Wakefield High School in 2008, Graham gave up his all-star sprinting career to follow his love of football.
He's played wide receiver and returned kicks for the Wolfpack the last three seasons. But this off-season, he received permission from football coach Tom O'Brien to follow a long line of football players who have contributed to the Wolfpack track program. He won his first race in January and has slowly shaved hundredths of a second off his time in both the 60 and the 200.
In the eyes of Wolfpack track coach Rollie Geiger, Graham has matured while playing football and brings a competitive mentality to the track that has been absorbed by his other runners.
"Obviously, there's no substitute for talent, but you also have to look at what football has done for the kid in terms of training and strength," Geiger said. "Here's a player who came out and finished within four thousandths of a second of winning a conference championship and qualified for two events at the national championships.
"There are obviously some real plusses with what they're doing with him in the weight room."
Geiger believes Graham has a chance to earn All-America honors or win either of his two races if he can match his best times of the season. Graham's time in the 60 is tied for the 10th best in the country this season and his time in the 200 is the eighth best. The top eight (including ties) in each event win first-team All-America honors, while those who finish between 9-16 will receive second-team All-America honors.
Graham, however, believes that being on the same track with the fastest runners in the country will light his competitive fire, just as being on the football field makes him more competitive and practicing against school-record holder A'Tolani Akinuotu, who is not competing in indoor track this season, makes him better.
"I have to have somebody next to me to keep pushing me," Graham said. "I saw some of the fastest runners in the country earlier this season at the Tyson Invitational in Arkansas, and I got a real good taste of what this weekend's going to be like.
"I'm not afraid of that kind of competition. It just puts more pressure on you to lock in and focus in on what you have to do. You have to hit every phase of your race perfectly to run that fast. You don't get that time just because you are fast. I've been sitting back thinking about what I have to do to get that kind of time."
And he's not thinking about silver.
• By Tim Peeler, tim_peeler@ncsu.edu.
