Graham's first year back at Lawrence County ends in championship
· Yahoo Sports
Jun. 12—Seven years years after leaving the Lawrence County softball program, Josh Graham returned as head coach and made history.
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In his first year back, Graham led the Red Devils to the school's first softball state championship — ending an 11-year state tournament drought despite losing five of last season's seniors — and now has been named The Daily's Class 5A-7A softball coach of the year.
But if you ask Graham about it, he'll quickly shift the spotlight elsewhere.
"It's never about me," he said.
His players disagree.
After Lawrence County's season ended in the North Regional final a year ago, Bella Cross pointed to Graham's return as one of the missing pieces that helped turn a talented roster that had never been to the state tournament into a state champion.
"He's going to be the first person there when we need him. He's going to be the first person there to say, 'Hey, I believe in you. You've got this, keep going,'" Cross said. "We all knew that, and that's why we all showed up for him every single day."
She said at the beginning of the season he sat all of them down and asked their goals.
"Every single person said we wanted to win a state championship," Cross said. "He explained to each of us the sacrifices that we were going to have to make, the work it was going to take. He told us that we have the biggest opportunity in front of us, but we have to work. We have to keep pushing."
So the Red Devils showed up for every extra practice, every after school workout.
"When we go to the beach during spring break, it's a workout day. We work out on game day, we're going three days a week," Graham said. "They never complained about it."
And the Red Devils continued to push themselves all year, first to their third straight area championship, then to the top qualifying spot from the North regional and finally through the losers bracket of the state tournament.
Their 60-game season came to an end at 49-10-1.
"This is a culmination of all the hard work that everybody in this program has gone through, even past players," he said. "The expectations for this softball program was laid well before this."
But none of this would have been possible if it weren't for those past players and the assistant coaches on his staff, he said.
Assistant coaches Jackie Burch, Chad Segars, Megan Barton and Cortney Lovelady helped the Red Devils win it all this year and became like a family in the process.
"It was a true staff. Everybody had their own role. They did everything really well, and we worked well off of each other," Graham said. "I couldn't do this alone. Most of the stuff we came up with, was all of us working together."
Besides softball coach, Graham is also the school's assistant principal. He said there were times when administrative duties pulled him off the field, but he never worried.
"I didn't feel nervous or bad about leaving the girls with my assistants," He said. "I knew they were going to work well and get what they needed."
For Graham, what made this season special was not the trophy, not the wins and not the recognition, but seeing a group of players buy into a common goal.
"I've got a great group of girls that bought into the weight room, they bought into the off-season work, they bought into our system and what we're doing. They trusted us," Graham said. "I couldn't have asked for a better group."