By Christopher Tremblay, Staff Sports Writer

Upon entering Shepherd Hill Regional High School as a freshman Anthony Graves was looking to play football for the Rams and while he did suit up that first year, his football career came to an end rather abruptly. Graves gave up on his dream to play football at the end of his freshman year, but despite the fact that he was walking away from football he was running toward track.

“I decided to quit football after my freshman year because I injured my elbow and had to have surgery,” the Rams running back said. “Having found that I was good in track, I didn’t want to keep playing football where I might get injured again and possibly end that career.”

The now-junior began running track as a social thing; all the football players were doing it so during the winter season his freshman year he went along with a bunch of friends and joined the track team. Graves would run the 300m during the indoor season and liked it so much he continued to run during the spring season taking part in the 100 and 200 m races in addition to participating in the 4x100 and 4x200 relays for Shepherd Hill.

“Being a running back on the football team I gravitated toward the sprinting events,” he said. “I seemed to be acclimated for the event and the coach thought that I was doing good there and kept me there.”

Although Graves believes that he was somewhat slow when he first began running, he found that by the middle of that first year he was knocking on the door to qualify for the 400 m at Nationals while he was actually running in the 600 m event. Graves would eventually qualify to run in the Nationals as a freshman crossing the line of the 600 with a time of 1:33.17.

The first-year runner remembers glancing over at the clock as he past the finish line and realized that he got below the qualifying time. The time gave him a sense of hope that he could do something if he continued to run high school track for Shepherd Hill.

“I knew the basics of running track, but after qualifying I started to do a lot of research into the little things so that I could become better,” Graves said. 

Liking what he was able to accomplish during the indoor season, Graves joined the outdoor track team as well and by the time his sophomore year rolled around he noticed that those little things that he was not doing (ice baths and heat compressions) as a freshman was helping him heal. Graves found that he was hindered with a lot of strains his first year, but by changing his routine and doing some of those little things he was not getting as injured during his sophomore season.

Despite the fact that Graves thought that he was slow as a runner his freshman campaign coach Len Harmon recalls the runner to be rather quick. 

“As an eighth grader he was at the track with a bunch of his football buddies so I approached them and asked them if I could time them all running the 40-yard dash,” the Rams coach said. “When Tony passed the line I remember looking at my stopwatch and thinking that it couldn’t be right, so I had them run it again. He was by far the fastest runner of the group.”

During the outdoor season of his sophomore year, he and his teammates qualified to take part in the 4x200 relay, but the foursome decided to forego the race due to expenses that they couldn’t afford. That season the 4x1 relay team posted a personal best time of 44.84 and the 4x200 team broke the school record with a time of 1:31.33. That same outdoor season Graves also posted his best time in the 100 (11.3), the 200 (22.83) and the 400 (51.67). 

As he got ready to enter his junior year on the track, Graves set some high standards for himself; with the biggest being to break the school record held by Bryan Santos in the 300 as well as getting to the Nationals in the same event. When his sophomore indoor season came to a close Graves found himself a half of a second behind Santos’ record. 

“Tony has always been successful in the sprinting events,” Harmon said. “After the first meet of the season he ran the 300 in a time of 35.87 and finds himself 2/10’s of a second away from taking the record from Bryan; a record I thought would never be broken. Now he is only the second runner in school history to run the 300 in under 36 seconds.”

Now running for the Rams in his third season Graves is not only looking for the school record in the 300, but he would also like to have his name etched in record books as the owner of the 200, which he is .8/10’s of a second off and the 400, where he finds himself a half second off the record holder.

“As someone who was not even fast in the beginning, I’ve progressed to where I am currently chasing three school records,” he said. “Never mind getting one, but to get all three would be crazy and would show me that all my hard work had paid off.”

Coach Harmon has noticed that Graves is ready to chase those records and he is hoping that as a junior he can finish in the top three at the Meet of Champions and find his way into the top six in the Division 3 Meet.

“Last year he did the work, but didn’t take care of his body and had a lot of little nagging injuries,” Harmon said. “Over the summer he attended some camps at Harvard where he has embraced everything they were teaching him. He’s healthy and strong and after putting up a personal best in his first race this year, I believe that he’s going to do some special things this year.”

While Graves still has two years running indoor and outdoor track for Shepherd Hill he would very much like to run on the collegiate level following high school and has already gotten the ball rolling on the recruiting process by talking to some coaches.