8 Days to Gator Football: Ray Graves

[Escambia94]

Samuel Ray Graves was head coach of the University of Florida football team from 1960 to 1969, and athletic director from 1960 to 1979. Coach Graves is widely credited with creating the modern alignment of the free safety and strong safety in the defensive backfield. When Coach Graves was hired, the Gators were coming off a 5-4-1 season that had them 9th in the SEC. He transformed the Gators from a team that typically ranked 6th to 9th in the conference to a team that competed well against nationally ranked teams and wound up 3rd to 6th in the conference. With Ray Graves as head coach, players such as Steve Spurrier, Larry Smith, and Jack Youngblood flourished and the Gators improved their record from 53-42-6 in the 1950s to 70-31-4 in the 1960s. His Gator winning record was not broken until his former QB Steve Spurrier surpassed him thirty years later. He was also responsible for allowing Dr. Robert Cade conduct sports medicine testing on his athletes, which led to the highly successful Gatorade beverage. Ray Graves' endorsement of Gatorade and his friendship with Kansas City Chiefs coach Hank Stram helped forge the partnership between the NFL and Gatorade that continues to this day.

Ray Graves elected to step down as football coach in 1969 to make room for incoming Gator alumnus, Doug Dickey, but he did not step down without first upsetting Dickey's Tennessee Volunteers 14-13 in the 1969 Gator Bowl. Coach Graves left the head football position with a 68.6% win record and an 80% bowl win record. He also had the Gators ranked in four different years--1960, 1965, 1966, and 1969. His teams were renowned for being tight-knit--the Graves' Silver Sixties Gators still gather for an annual reunion. His teams also enjoyed unprecedented academic success, with 93% of his players graduating and over 50% earning law or medical degrees. Ray Graves remained in Gainesville as the athletic director until 1979, where he helped build up the women's athletic programs in a perennial top-ten performer.

Ray Graves was inducted in the Florida Sports Hall of Fame ('72), the University of Florida Athletic Association Hall of Fame ('81), the Tennessee Sports Hall of Fame ('90), and College Football Hall of Fame ('90). Coach Graves had such a profound impact on the team that when Steve Spurrier returned to coach the Gators, he created the Ray Graves team MVP trophy. In 2005, the athletic office was named after him. Ray currently is happily retired in Tampa, Florida.

 

[Leakfan12]

I wish he stayed as coach past 1969.

 

[Escambia94]

Agreed. His option offense ruined Gator football worse than Meyer's spread option years later. By "ruined" I mean in terms of recruiting and building an offense across multiple years.

 

[Leakfan12]

Also think about it, he was Spurrier while Spurrier was in High School. He was airing it out since when Spurrier and Reeves were his QBs. If he stayed past 1969 as coach, the Gators would have a dynasty rivaling Bama. Also I wish he would have hired someone to follow his system not bring in Dickey and his system.

 

[Leakfan12]

Also I wish he would have hired someone to follow his system not bring in Dickey and his system.

If he wanted to resigned after the 1969 season.

 

[Escambia94]

In theory, Doug Dickey should have succeeded at Florida. He made it into the College Football Hall of Fame as a coach based on decent success at Tennessee. I am not sure why neither Ray Graves nor Doug Dickey were able to make a conference championship. I read a theory of this elsewhere that the rise of the University of Florida coincided with the rise of the state of Florida as an economic power after the oil crisis of the 1970s. Around 1980, as the state's economy improved, it brought richer people to the state who invested more in high school and college football, brought better trained athletes to the state, and made Gainesville more appealing to college athletes. Oddly enough, the Gators football performance tends to follow the state's economy. For some reason, this trend does not apply to Tuscaloosa and Knoxville of the 1960s-2000s.

 

[Leakfan12]

In theory, Doug Dickey should have succeeded at Florida. He made it into the College Football Hall of Fame as a coach based on decent success at Tennessee. I am not sure why neither Ray Graves nor Doug Dickey were able to make a conference championship. I read a theory of this elsewhere that the rise of the University of Florida coincided with the rise of the state of Florida as an economic power after the oil crisis of the 1970s. Around 1980, as the state's economy improved, it brought richer people to the state who invested more in high school and college football, brought better trained athletes to the state, and made Gainesville more appealing to college athletes. Oddly enough, the Gators football performance tends to follow the state's economy. For some reason, this trend does not apply to Tuscaloosa and Knoxville of the 1960s-2000s.

I think Graves would have a SEC title (possibly more) if he stayed past 1969. His offense was a precrusor to Spurrier's Fun n Gun. Think about it John Reaves had 24 touchdowns BACK IN 1969. Heck, I'm you can consider Kerwin Bell 16 touchdowns in 1984 and 21 TD's in 1985 as ahead of the curve. I doubt Bama had a QB throw for 20 TDS in a season. Also according to 30 for 30 doc The U, South Florida became a hotbed of talent in football by the the late 1970s. IF the U and Florida State got talent there, I'm sure some of the Gators legends came from that area.

 

[Escambia94]

I think Graves would have a SEC title (possibly more) if he stayed past 1969. His offense was a precrusor to Spurrier's Fun n Gun. Think about it John Reaves had 24 touchdowns BACK IN 1969. Heck, I'm you can consider Kerwin Bell 16 touchdowns in 1984 and 21 TD's in 1985 as ahead of the curve. I doubt Bama had a QB throw for 20 TDS in a season. Also according to 30 for 30 doc The U, South Florida became a hotbed of talent in football by the the late 1970s. IF the U and Florida State got talent there, I'm sure some of the Gators legends came from that area.

I am not sure if Ray Graves' offense was the precursor to the Fun N' Gun. Coach Graves gave Spurrier latitude to draw up new plays in the huddle, or even wave off the kicker. Graves' offense, as shown in his book Guide to Modern Football Offense was a basic pro-style offense. Although Graves' offense was nothing special, it was well executed by Larry Libertore, Tom Shannon, Steve Spurrier, and John Reaves. I would say that John Reaves' success was due to his brass cajones. He was not afraid to chuck the ball in the air, because he had much faster receivers such as Carlos Alvarez than Spurrier's Charley Casey. Casey had more yardage, because he was essentially the only dependable receiver for Spurrier. Spurrier's other target was Jack Harper, a running back who caught passes out of the backfield.

As for the other schools in Florida gaining talent, south Florida has seemingly always been different from the rest of us. For the longest time, only south Florida had actual rich people, which is why they get the larger population, the fancier houses, the professional sports teams, and multiple private universities in the same area. Miami University used to get all the best athletes, because it was a private university and could influence athletes to attend the USC or Notre Dame of the South, at least in terms of sports. In modern times, public universities seem to have an advantage over private ones, but that was not necessarily the case in the 1970s and 1980s.

I tend to agree that if Ray Graves would have stayed, he may have had a bigger hand in building the program into his own mold and into a powerhouse that would rival Alabama and Georgia. Then again, Doug Dickey did bring Tennessee a championship in '67 and '69 after building up that program. It is a tough call, even in reading the past.

 

[Leakfan12]

True but if Graves stayed I'm sure would have QBs that could chuck it especially since Gators had Wes Chandler, Nat Moore, and other speedy receivers. Don't know if you consider Frankie Neal and Ray McDonald Sr. speedy (Nattiel was).