Bobby McGraw was named the acting head coach in May 2014 after former head coach Tanya Longo surprisingly resigned. It was at that moment McGraw took it upon himself to revamp, reconstruct, and rebuild the women’s program. Slippery Rock University knows there is a new coach; however they don’t know the journey of hardship and adversity he has faced to make it where he is today.
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| McGraw celebrates with his team after a victory over Edinboro. Photo: Mike Schnelle |
“The spring of 1995 was when I finally came to the realization that I wasn’t succeeding in college because the only thing I wanted to do was party and miss class,” McGraw said. “I realized my dream of playing basketball in Europe was over, and that’s when I decided to join the Marines because I needed a change in my life.”
The first night at 2 in the morning when McGraw got off the bus, a drill instructor immediately began screaming at him and he thought to himself, what have I done? 48 hours before his first day at the Marines, McGraw said he was still partying and having a good time.
McGraw had only 18 months left of enlistment when his father died unexpectedly of a heart attack at 48-years-old. He had planned on making a career out of the Marines, but felt the right thing to do was finish his four years, and come back home to western PA.
“Those tremendous four years turned out to be the best thing I’ve ever done in my life,” McGraw said. “The experience I gained from not only dealing with people of different cultures but from around the world is something I will never forget.”
After the grieving and his family no longer needing his presence, McGraw began to miss the police work he was exposed to in the Marines. He had been working for the criminal investigation division which investigated the major crimes that occurred at the military base and housing.
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| McGraw coaches his players during a time-out. Photo: Mike Schnelle |
After working for the BCSO, McGraw began to miss home. He made the decision to move back home, with the intent of becoming a police officer in western PA as the only thing on his mind.
“To me, law enforcement was the best way I could provide for myself and have a decent job,” McGraw said.
He did not immediately become a state trooper because of the long hiring process. At the age of 21-years-old, McGraw wanted to become a police officer as soon as possible. The PA State Police academy is exactly like being in the Marine Corps. Boot camp, and McGraw was in no mood to do that, he said. He avoided the inevitable, and put himself through a municipal police academy run through IUP but hosted at Carnegie Mellon. He did not have enough money to go full-time and get it over with in three months, so he had to attend part-time for 11 months, while working at Fox’s Pizza in Butler.
McGraw graduated from the police academy in 2001, and immediately began working for three different police departments. His fulltime job, Monday through Friday, was working for the Butler County Sheriff’s Office. On Friday nights he worked the midnight shift with the Evans City Police Department, and then Saturday afternoons he worked a 3-11 shift with the Jackson Township Police Department.
“Needless to say, come Monday morning when I woke up to go do my daylight job, I didn’t know where I was at,” McGraw said. “I was working daylight, midnight, afternoon, midnight, and then starting daylight again on Monday.”
This routine went on for awhile before McGraw realized he wasn’t having fun and he wasn’t making any money. That’s when he decided to go do what he was supposed to do and become a state trooper, McGraw said. He entered the PA State Police Academy in May 2004 and graduated that November.
“I was immediately sent to the Uniontown Barracks in Fayette County,” McGraw said. “I was very fortunate to be sent there because out of the 42 of us in my class, 39 of us were sent to Philadelphia.”
Working in Uniontown was the closest McGraw has ever come to killing someone.
McGraw transferred back to the Butler Barracks in February 2006 and was still a uniform trooper until January 2007 when he became a detective specializing in child sex abuse cases. During that time frame, McGraw endured the 42 hardest days of his life.
He tore his Achilles tendon in November 2006. 2 months later after the surgery, a blood clot had formed in his leg. One morning he woke up and couldn’t breathe because the blood clot had shifted onto his lung. McGraw had a pulmonary embolism that could have shifted and killed him at anytime.
“I wasn’t feeling well, I was sweating profusely for no reason, I was tired all the time, and I was having pains in my chest,” McGraw said. “I was diagnosed with a disease called sarcoidosis.”
McGraw started knocking off the excessive weight because his doctor told him if he didn’t start taking care of his body, he was going to need insulin. At that time, his wife Melissa had her first miscarriage at eight weeks pregnant. Melissa became pregnant again with their daughter Marina when she began to have complications. She had a placenta abruption and lost 50 percent of the fluid surrounding the baby.
As McGraw and his wife are trying to grieve the loss of their daughter, he receives a frantic phone call from his mother saying his sister is dying. She had a kidney infection that shut down all of her organs and put her into a coma. His family was forced to make a decision because the only thing keeping her alive was machines. However by some miracle, she came out of the coma five days later.
“On December 10th, my best friend in the world, someone who I considered to be my older brother growing up, my high school teammate, we lived together at Junior College, my teammate and roommate at clarion, Scott Lang passed away,” McGraw said. “We were coaching together at La Roche College when he had a heart attack and died during the middle of practice at 41-years-old.”
McGraw thanks God he wasn’t drinking during that horrid 42 day stretch of his life. After Lang’s death, La Roche went on to win 16 games in a row. But without him, McGraw no longer could continue to coach there.
In April 2011, McGraw took a week off work to have appending neck surgery. During that time he realized what he’s wanted to do his entire life since he was 12-years-old, be a college basketball coach, McGraw said.
“Seeing everything that happened in those 42 days, that really made me realize that you can go at any day and things happen,” McGraw said. “I said to myself, if you are going to chase the rainbow you better do it now because you aren’t getting any younger.”
During the 2012-13 season, Slippery Rock Men’s Basketball head coach, Kevin Reynolds, gave McGraw an opportunity. He volunteered with the team for a year, hoping to get his foot in the door. Out of desperation, former head coach of the women’s team offered McGraw the assistant coaching position for the 2013-14 season. McGraw turned down the offer at first because he had never coached women before and he does a lot yelling. However after discussing the opportunity with his family and Reynolds, McGraw took the offer.
During the time Tanya Longo resigned, McGraw was offered the assistant coaching position at IUP. But the opportunity to return with his former players as a head coach was a no brainer for McGraw.
“When you finish a season 6-20, that’s when you realize who’s in and whose out,” McGraw said.
McGraw says he coaches women the same way he coaches men because players are players. However he said the biggest difference is their reactions when you yell at them.
“When you yell at a guy, that guy will get mad at you personally,” McGraw said. “Women are much more together. If you yell at a woman, not only is she mad at you but her two best friends are as well. Woman also listen better to what you are saying and try to carry out what you want them to do.”
