Graves speaks out

By Andy Samuelson     Nov 20, 2002

Kansas University’s Jeff Graves craves grilled cheese sandwiches.

But after feeling the heat from the Jayhawk community because he was overweight, the junior from Lee’s Summit, Mo., has had to cut back on his cheesy favorites.

“Nah, I don’t cut them out (completely), it’s just all the other junk food,” Graves said after Kansas’ 81-57 victory over Holy Cross on Tuesday at Allen Fieldhouse.

Despite a somewhat silent effort on the court where he scored three points, grabbed three rebounds and picked up three fouls in eight minutes, Graves spoke out for the first time as a Jayhawk.

“I’m working a lot harder, trying to get back to where I was,” said Graves, who’s officially listed at 6-foot-9, 275 pounds in KU’s media guide, but reported to Lawrence last summer at 293.

Graves’ sloppy physical condition definitely caught the attention of Kansas coach Roy Williams.

Williams wasn’t bashful about publicly criticizing Graves’ condition, saying Graves wasn’t an official member of the team until he completed 6 1â2 laps of a mandatory 12-minute run.

But no one was as hard on Graves as himself.

“He’s been riding me pretty hard, but coming in as a juco transfer there were a lot of expectations that I had to do and I didn’t do them,” said Graves, who scored 15 points and grabbed 10 rebounds in Kansas’ two exhibition victories. “That was the consequence. Now I’m just working a lot harder than I was, trying to make up.”

His teammates have taken notice.

“We just tried to stay as positive as possible, because a lot of negative things got out in the media,” said sophomore Wayne Simien. “You can say it doesn’t effect you, but it really does.”

While Graves didn’t really get a chance to show Kansas fans Tuesday the slimmer version of himself that averaged 16.6 points per game and 8.2 rebounds a contest at Iowa Western Community College, he did say he’s making smarter choices.

“About 10 to 15 more pounds, that’s where I need to play at. But I need to get down to about 270, and now I’m down to about 275. It’s getting there, but I need to keep pushing,” he said.

Since he has shunned his snacks, the results have shown.

“I feel like I’ve got to be the guy,” Graves said. “There’s a lot of expectations from coach and the team for me to step up, and that’s what I have to do.”

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