Longtime Randolph-Henry High School coach James Graves officially announced he would retire from his R-H coaching career July 24.

Throughout his career, Graves served as either a head coach or assistant coach on the basketball court for 21 years and on the football field for 19 years.

Essentially, his retirement is the end of an era for students who were afforded the opportunity to learn under the leadership of Graves.

“I never had aspirations to be a coach,” he said. “I kind of got my job teaching because I was willing to coach.” In addition to coaching, Graves previously worked as a history teacher for 35 years, serving three years at Central Middle School and 32 at Randolph-Henry. During that time, many different students passed through the hallways and in some way, Graves had an influence on those students.

We thank Graves for dedicating so many years to the athletic program at Randolph-Henry and teaching student athletes the game, as well as character building skills in and out of the classroom.

“I had good years and not-so-good years,” said Graves. “I think one of the things I learned from it was that the winning part was not as important as the character- building part. If you build character, you will get the wins over time.”

One of the most important aspect of athletics should be character building and teaching young athletics to work together as a unit.

We believe Graves encompassed this during his time with the Randolph-Henry Athletics program. Congratulations on a job well done.