Wayne Graham

Wayne Leon Graham (born April 6, 1936) is a former major-league baseball player and the head coach of the Rice Owls baseball team in Houston, Texas. He has coached one College World Series championship team and five NJCAA World Series champions.

Playing career

Graham attended Reagan High School in Houston and played college baseball at the University of Texas,^[1] where he played two seasons under coach Bibb Falk.

Graham was signed by the Philadelphia Phillies as an amateur free agent in 1957.^[2] He played eleven years as a professional with the Philadelphia Phillies and New York Mets organizations, including brief major-league stints in 1963 and 1964. He was named Texas minor league player of the year in 1962 after hitting .311 for Dallas-Fort Worth. Graham was called up to the Phillies in 1963 and played in 10 games under manager Gene Mauch. One year later, Graham appeared in twenty games for the Mets under legendary Casey Stengel.

Coaching career

High school

When his playing career ended, Graham returned to the University of Texas to earn a Bachelor of Science degree in physical education in 1970, and he later added a Master's Degree in education at the University of Houston in 1973.

His coaching career began at Scarborough High School in Houston. Graham coached for nine seasons at Scarborough and one year at Spring Branch High School before moving on to coach junior college baseball at San Jacinto College in Pasadena, near Houston.

San Jacinto

Beginning in 1981, Graham turned San Jacinto into the nation's most dominant JUCO baseball team. After regular conference titles in Graham's first few seasons, the Gators became a dominant force in 1984 when they began a run of seven consecutive 50-win seasons and berths in the NJCAA World Series in Grand Junction, Colorado.

After losing in the 1984 championship game, San Jacinto won three consecutive titles from 1985–87. After falling short again in 1988, the Gators went back-to-back in 1989–90. Those five national titles in six years eventually led to Graham being named Junior College Coach of the Century by Collegiate Baseball.

In his 11 seasons at San Jacinto, Graham earned five national coach of the year awards and produced countless professional players, most notably Roger Clemens and Andy Pettitte.

Rice

Graham took over at Rice in 1992. He inherited a program that had tallied only seven winning seasons in 78 years of Southwest Conference play, and had only finished above fourth place once. As at San Jac, he turned the program into a national powerhouse. A program that had never before qualified for the NCAA Division I Baseball Tournament has made 18 consecutive tournament appearances (1995–2012) and won 17 consecutive regular-season or tournament conference championships (1996–2012) in three different conferences (Southwest Conference, Western Athletic Conference, Conference USA). Rice has also been to the College World Series seven times (1997, 1999, 2002, 2003, 2006, 2007, 2008). Graham's crowning achievement was the 2003 College World Series, in which Rice won its first national championship in any sport. Not one to rest on his laurels, Graham quipped during a post-game interview, "We want to do it again."

One year later, Graham once again presided over history, as three Rice pitchers were drafted in the first eight picks of the 2004 Major League Baseball Draft, the only time three teammates have ever been selected in the first round.

Graham's Rice teams have produced first-round picks Jose Cruz, Jr. (1995), Matt Anderson (1997), Lance Berkman (1997), Bubba Crosby (1998), Kenny Baugh (2001), Jon Skaggs (2001), David Aardsma (2003), Philip Humber (2004), Jeff Niemann (2004), Wade Townsend (2004, 2005), Joe Savery (2007) and Anthony Rendon (2011). Eight of those players have been pitchers, and Graham is known for developing players that went undrafted out of high school, such as Niemann and Townsend.

Graham was also largely responsible for Rice's on-campus baseball stadium, Reckling Park, being built in 2000. The facility seats more than 5,000 fans and is one of the finest in the country.

Now in his 70s, Graham is one of the most quotable coaches in baseball. He won his 800th Division I game during the 2009 season and has more than 1,400 wins as a collegiate head coach.^[3] He has never had a losing season in 38 years as a high school or college coach.

Head coaching records

See also

• List of current NCAA Division I baseball coaches

References

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Wayne Graham.

• Graham, Wayne and David Goldstein. Wayne Graham Oral History, Houston Oral History Project, August 25, 2009.
• Baseball-Reference.com
• Baseball Almanac
• "Wayne Graham". Rice Owls. Retrieved June 19, 2007.