Kansas State University Athletics
SE: K-State Opened ‘Whole New World’ for 1986 NCAA Champion, HOF Inductee Rita Graves
Aug 30, 2018 | Track & Field, Sports Extra
By Corbin McGuire
In the spring of 1982, Rita Graves (Jackson) entered her final high school track meet with a plan to go to college but no real way to afford it.
The Topeka High School senior placed second, her best finish at the KSHSAA state meet, with a clearance of 5-8. Greg Kraft, then a K-State assistant track and field coach, approached Graves shortly after her runner-up finish. He saw potential in her.He also had a partial, yet life-changing scholarship to offer.
"He basically just told me, if I remember right, 'You look like you've never worked out a day in your life, so I think if we can work with you, you might be able to score one or two points in the Big Eight,'" Graves recalled. "That's kind of what his whole sell was to me."
Turns out, Kraft was as right as he was wrong.
Graves did admit she had never seen the inside of a weight room until she got to K-State. But her potential went well beyond scoring a point or two in the conference meet.
Her Wildcat career was so decorated, including seven All-America honors, three Big Eight titles and a national championship, that it landed her in this year's K-State Athletics Hall of Fame class.
Like her career, Graves said the honor of joining the nine-person class came as a "surprise."
"I was really excited about it. I never went into doing athletics thinking that would ever happen," she said. "(K-State) opened up a whole new world for me."
To start, K-State's scholarship offer allowed Graves to attend college in the first place. Her parents could not afford to pay for it, she said. At K-State, she majored in journalism and mass communications with a focus on advertising, becoming a first-generation graduate in 1986.
Graves has worked as a lean manufacturing consultant at Spirit AeroSystems for the last 20-plus years in Wichita. To this day, she said she utilizes the experiences she had as a high jumper at K-State.
"I think it's helped me in my job, dealing with different individuals. It's helped me to understand goals, how important goals are and meeting goals in your everyday life," she said, "and being able to overcome challenges."
Graves' biggest challenge at K-State was the training.
She said she started high jumping around seventh or eighth grade because she saw a girl doing it in P.E. class and "thought it looked like fun." She did not take it much more seriously in high school.
"I really did not do any training for it. I pretty much just showed up for the track meets because there was no one who could really teach the high jump," Graves said. "So before arriving on K-State's campus I had never even really seen the inside of a weight room or knew nothing about training. I had zero experience. It was a real eye-opener for me.
"It was a struggle. Everyone else, they kind of understood the training and I knew none of that. So there were several days I remember going back to my dorm room just crying because I thought it was so hard because I had never done anything like it in my life."
Graves persevered, and her performances benefitted because of it.
She won her first Big Eight title at the 1983 indoor meet. The following season, she finished second at the NCAA Championship for both the indoor and outdoor seasons. She won another indoor Big Eight title in 1985. She capped her career with a stellar senior season, winning the outdoor conference title and becoming the first K-State female to claim the NCAA Championship in the high jump in 1986.
"I think I was in disbelief how much it really did help my jumping, all of the training," she said.
Since Graves left, K-State has produced a combined seven different national championship high jumpers between the men and women. Most recently, Tejaswin Shankar accomplished the feat as a freshman last spring. In 2016, Kim Williamson joined Graves to become the second female to win an outdoor NCAA high jump title in a Wildcat uniform.
Graves said she has followed all of K-State's success, particularly in her event. She's proud to be the first of a growing number of Wildcats to achieve greatness in it.
"I was sort of the first one. I think that's really exciting," Graves, whose top outdoor mark (1.87m/6-02) still ranks sixth in school history and her best indoor clearance (1.85m/6-01) sits at seventh, said. "It doesn't bother me that someone jumped higher than me. I think it's just exciting to be the beginning of something special with high jumping at K-State and putting K-State on the map."
In the spring of 1982, Rita Graves (Jackson) entered her final high school track meet with a plan to go to college but no real way to afford it.
The Topeka High School senior placed second, her best finish at the KSHSAA state meet, with a clearance of 5-8. Greg Kraft, then a K-State assistant track and field coach, approached Graves shortly after her runner-up finish. He saw potential in her.He also had a partial, yet life-changing scholarship to offer.
"He basically just told me, if I remember right, 'You look like you've never worked out a day in your life, so I think if we can work with you, you might be able to score one or two points in the Big Eight,'" Graves recalled. "That's kind of what his whole sell was to me."
Turns out, Kraft was as right as he was wrong.
Graves did admit she had never seen the inside of a weight room until she got to K-State. But her potential went well beyond scoring a point or two in the conference meet.
Her Wildcat career was so decorated, including seven All-America honors, three Big Eight titles and a national championship, that it landed her in this year's K-State Athletics Hall of Fame class.
Like her career, Graves said the honor of joining the nine-person class came as a "surprise."
"I was really excited about it. I never went into doing athletics thinking that would ever happen," she said. "(K-State) opened up a whole new world for me."
To start, K-State's scholarship offer allowed Graves to attend college in the first place. Her parents could not afford to pay for it, she said. At K-State, she majored in journalism and mass communications with a focus on advertising, becoming a first-generation graduate in 1986.
Graves has worked as a lean manufacturing consultant at Spirit AeroSystems for the last 20-plus years in Wichita. To this day, she said she utilizes the experiences she had as a high jumper at K-State.
"I think it's helped me in my job, dealing with different individuals. It's helped me to understand goals, how important goals are and meeting goals in your everyday life," she said, "and being able to overcome challenges."
Graves' biggest challenge at K-State was the training.
She said she started high jumping around seventh or eighth grade because she saw a girl doing it in P.E. class and "thought it looked like fun." She did not take it much more seriously in high school.
"I really did not do any training for it. I pretty much just showed up for the track meets because there was no one who could really teach the high jump," Graves said. "So before arriving on K-State's campus I had never even really seen the inside of a weight room or knew nothing about training. I had zero experience. It was a real eye-opener for me.
"It was a struggle. Everyone else, they kind of understood the training and I knew none of that. So there were several days I remember going back to my dorm room just crying because I thought it was so hard because I had never done anything like it in my life."
Graves persevered, and her performances benefitted because of it.
She won her first Big Eight title at the 1983 indoor meet. The following season, she finished second at the NCAA Championship for both the indoor and outdoor seasons. She won another indoor Big Eight title in 1985. She capped her career with a stellar senior season, winning the outdoor conference title and becoming the first K-State female to claim the NCAA Championship in the high jump in 1986.
"I think I was in disbelief how much it really did help my jumping, all of the training," she said.
Since Graves left, K-State has produced a combined seven different national championship high jumpers between the men and women. Most recently, Tejaswin Shankar accomplished the feat as a freshman last spring. In 2016, Kim Williamson joined Graves to become the second female to win an outdoor NCAA high jump title in a Wildcat uniform.
Graves said she has followed all of K-State's success, particularly in her event. She's proud to be the first of a growing number of Wildcats to achieve greatness in it.
"I was sort of the first one. I think that's really exciting," Graves, whose top outdoor mark (1.87m/6-02) still ranks sixth in school history and her best indoor clearance (1.85m/6-01) sits at seventh, said. "It doesn't bother me that someone jumped higher than me. I think it's just exciting to be the beginning of something special with high jumping at K-State and putting K-State on the map."
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