Coach Robbie Graham celebrated after his team won the state championship. (Photo by Vincenzo Ciaramitaro)
He’s a 1988 graduate of Fleming County High School who was a star basketball player recruited by coach C.M. Newton to play at Vanderbilt. He redshirted his freshman season before giving up basketball and finishing his education at Morehead State.
I had a chance to talk with the personable Graham about his past, his recent state title and more.
Question: When did you start coaching?
Graham: “I don’t know the exact year, but it was in Fleming County. I was a middle school coach at Fleming County when Mark Crane was the head varsity coach and asked me to start coaching. I did seventh-eighth grade for two years. Coach Lake Kelly got the head high school coaching job at Fleming County and he called me and asked me to come on board. I was his assistant for six or seven years there. His house is right beside the middle school, and he would sneak into practice and watch. He was scouting us. The chance to work for coach Kelly, a legend, was a great opportunity for me and I learned a lot not only as a coach, but as a man, as a father, as a husband. Just a great experience. Something I’ll never forget.”
Question: How did you get from Fleming County to George Rogers Clark?
Graham: “Scott Humphrey was the head coach at Clark County. Fleming County hired a new head coach, and I’d been out for a couple years doing some AAU stuff with some kids. I ran into coach Humphrey at the 16th region girls championship. His buddy was coaching Russell, my buddy was coaching Rowan County. We were just chatting, and he said he needed an assistant. We got together and talked. We knew each other. I met with him and I was there with him for seven years, The head coach left the girls to go to Lexington Catholic. My daughter was a junior, and I really had no desire to coach girls basketball. I’d done a little AAU girls, but with her, but I was really happy with a great staff. We had some success there with the boys and we’d won back to back region championships. My daughter approaches me and says, ‘Dad, I want you to coach our team.’ I didn’t really want to do that. Then she brought a bunch of about 10 girls to the house one afternoon after school and they wanted me to coach. Then some of the parents came a couple days later. So I applied, got the job and here I am.”
Question: So did you ever dream this would be a long-term deal coaching the GRC girls?
Graham: “My first year was 2013. We went back to back (regional titles) with the boys in 2011 and 2012 and then the next year I took over with the girls. My second year we went to the Final Four my daughter’s senior year.
“I really didn’t have a plan, a set plan, but I enjoyed it, and then I liked it.We had some kids come back after that year and I knew the tradition of Clark County GRC girls basketball, so it was probably one of the few girls jobs I would have left the boys to do.”
Question: Now you pour your heart into coaching, including running an elite camp in the summer to showcase high school players to college coaches?
Graham: “When you love something and you’re passionate about something, you don’t worry about the fatigue part of it. We’ve had some great kids throughout my tenure here, and some great coaches have helped me. Our community has a complete buy-in. Our administration from the superintendent to the principal to AD are the same way. They want a winning program, and they are very supportive.”
Question: You got close to winning the state title before with some great teams. Now that you have won the title, does that change anything about you or your goals?
Graham: “When you’re coaching, you always want to win your last game, right? So we were able to do that for the first time ever in my tenure. Now you have got that feeling. It’s a great feeling. Next year we have got a chance to be pretty good again and hopefully we can chase it again.
“It was definitely some relief to win it because you chase something so hard for so long but the joy is mostly for our kids. I was glad to see the joy our kids had and be able to run out there and celebrate together. It just overwhelmed me with emotion. I was so happy for those kids. We’re in the gym six days a week, two hours a day together, and to see their hard work pay off was really rewarding for me.”
Question: Sometimes the perception I think is that GRC has so much talent it has to win, but how hard do your players work?
Graham: “We’re grounded. I mean, it’s not easy. I tell our parents at the first meeting of the year that I’m going to coach them hard and I’m gonna love them harder. I think they respect that. I think our girls know how much I care about them and are willing to work hard. It’s two hours (in practice) of getting after it. It’s not just rolling the balls out. We really get after it and defensively. We kind of hang our hats on defense. We lift weights throughout the year, our conditioning is really tough and it’s not easy. That’s why we don’t have 95 girls coming out for basketball.”
