Running from dad's shadow

T.J. Graham, son of Trevor Graham, is a respectable sprinter

RALEIGH -- T.J. Graham can outrun almost every high school student in the state.

He can't outrun the cloud of suspicion that surrounds his father.

For the Wakefield High School junior, today's 4-A state track finals are more than just a meet. They're the first significant step down a road he hopes could someday vindicate his father, Trevor, the coach who turned Raleigh into a mecca for world-class sprinters before he was swamped by a wave of doping accusations.

As if the pressure of being Trevor Graham's son wasn't enough to outsprint.

"Even when I'm running fast now, people have the nerve to say something about some steroids," T.J. Graham says.

That isn't an issue on the football field, his preferred arena, but the 17-year-old can't avoid it as he runs track this spring. Today in Greensboro, he'll race for the state title in the 100- and 200-meter dashes, along with the 1,600-meter relay.

His father was a state champion in New York on his way to becoming an Olympic silver medalist, but Trevor Graham was best known for tutoring some of the fastest human beings on earth. His proteges included record-setters and Olympic gold medalists such as Marion Jones, Tim Montgomery and Justin Gatlin.

But after 11 athletes associated with Graham were suspended for doping violations, the U.S. Olympic Committee banned him from its training sites last August, the first time it had taken such an action against a coach.

Graham provided the Rosetta stone for the BALCO investigation when he sent a syringe containing the designer steroid THG to the U.S. Anti-Doping Agency in 2003, allowing researchers to develop the first test for it.

Yet, he is scheduled to go to trial Sept. 24 on charges that he lied to federal investigators in that case, and he is believed to be under investigation by USADA as well.

Nike terminated its sponsorship. N.C. State and N.C. Central banned his Sprint Capitol USA runners from their tracks.

Nine months later, his cadre of sprinters is down to a constituency of one. His son.

Birthright of speed

Sitting in the stands at Wakefield during track practice, Trevor Graham talks on his cell phone while he watches T.J. jog.

"T.J., one more lap," he calls out.

"One more?" the son responds.

"You can't just jog one lap. C'mon, now."

Later, dressed in a black top and workout pants, Trevor Graham carries a pair of cones across the infield to oversee T.J.'s sprint workout on the other side of the track.

Trevor Graham declined to be interviewed for this story, other than to say, "You need to talk to the coach. I'm just his dad. Not his coach."

T.J. Graham grew up watching his father work at N.C. State's Paul Derr Track, spending his summers tossing a football on the side while some of the world's fastest men and women trained under his father's tutelage.

He avoided track for years, preferring to use his speed on the football field, where he hopes to win a Division I scholarship.

But he absorbed what he observed so deeply that when he came out for track the first time this winter, he emerged as one of the fastest runners in the state.

He has the sprinter's body he inherited from his parents, both stars at St. Augustine's, but he says that only recently has he become physically mature enough to take advantage.

"He's got nice long legs and he knows how to use them, which a lot of high school athletes don't," said Sterling Roberts, Wakefield's track coach. "He's got impeccable form, the best form I've ever seen in a high school runner. I'm sure that has something to do with his dad, and probably some natural talent in there, too."