By Thomas Sellers Jr.
Football is a game of legacy and numbers.
For Millington Trojan senior TJ Graves, he wanted to bring honor and prestige to the dad Tony Sr. by wearing his jersey number. The younger Graves’ mission was accomplished with All-Region honors for defense and offense.
While racking up football honors, Graves found time to reach State three consecutive years in wrestling and is a member of the Trojan Baseball team. But his first love, football, took center stage April 26 in the Millington Performing Arts Center.
With his sisters Brandi and Katie nearby and parents Tony and Susan by his side, TJ inked his national letter of intent to play college football at one of the most storied programs in the nation. Graves will become a Saint John’s Johnnies in Collegeville, Minn.
“It’s a long way away but we’re so happy and proud of him,” Susan said. “When he told us he had a peace about it and that’s good enough for me.”
With five schools across the nation bidding for his services on the defensive line, TJ had to do some soul searching to pick his landing spot.
“He’s prayed about it and worked for it,” Tony Sr. said. “He’s done everything he’s supposed to do. This school got a hold of him and he loves it. This is where we’re feeling he needs to go.”
TJ started playing football at the age of 4 and became a fixture on the line wearing the No. 65 that would become his trademark.
Another name associated with TJ was the “Vicious Panda.” With Asian heritage, the nickname is based on his family origin and athletic endeavors while wearing the black and gold. Graves played four years of football and competed in wrestling the entire time. Tossing in his childhood sport of baseball his senior year, Graves was named the Iron Trojan for the Class of 2022.
“We’re blessed,” Susan said. “Whatever sport he was playing he went after it 100 percent. And we were there. We followed him, taped him. And I wouldn’t change one thing we’ve done.”
But TJ’s first athletic love is on the gridiron.
“Dedication,” Tony said summarizes his son’s time in the sport. “He was dedicated to his team. He was dedicated to his workouts. He was dedicated to making sure he was doing what he needed to do to get better and do his job. It was never good enough. He was always working to get better, fixing that mistake from last week.
Several of TJ coaches will validate the words of Tony. TJ’s former line coach Will Littles said witnessing his former player reach his dream is proof hard work pays off.
“Him being coachable, that’s the biggest thing,” he said. “From sixth grade on up to the seventh and eighth grades and on up, if you told him to do something, he was going to do it. He was going to give it everything he’s got. You go through it and show him how to do it, he adapts and goes through it.”
Tony noted his son is real humble, honest and does what he says he’s going to do. Coach Littles seconded that as well.
“Being on the line, you could have put him at linebacker,” he said. “You told him to hit the hole, he was going to go through it. It was just one of those things you won’t find a kid like him that will listen to every detail and be willing to learn it.
“Without the drive he has, there’s no way today is possible,” Littles added. “He did that. That was on him. Every time he got up when he was hurt and he kept going, that was on him. It’s amazing and he’ accomplished a lot.”
The St. John’s Football program has accomplished a lot mainly because of the late John Gagliardi. Gagliardi stepped down in 2012 leaving the Johnnies as the winningest coach in NCAA Football history. He was the head football coach at Saint John’s University from 1953 until 2012 with a career record of 489–138–11.
His Johnnies won four national titles with two NAIA Football National Championship in 1963 and 1965, and a pair of NCAA Division III Football Championship in 1976 and 2003. Gagliardi was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2006.
Currently his successor is running the program in Head Coach Gary Fasching. The 1981 graduate of SJU, Fasching became the 16th head coach in the 102-year history of Saint John’s Football. Fasching ended his ninth season as head coach at Saint John’s in 2021 and is a five-time (2014, 2017, 2018, 2019 and 2021) MIAC Coach of the Year.
The coaches at Saint John’s will do all in their power to make sure their latest recruit Graves will add to the Johnnie’s tradition and maintain his personal ritual of wearing No. 65.
Maybe the residents of Collegeville will associate the number with Graves like people in Millington do.
“I don’t mind that at all,” Tony said of the number belonging to TJ. “It was my number when I was little and when I played. He came to me and said, ‘Dad I am going to take your number.’ I said, ‘That’s cool.’
“He’s gotten so much more out of it than whatever I did,” he concluded. “Not a day has gone by he has not honored his coaches, team, teammates and done his very best at everything he’s done. He takes pride in everything he’s done. There’s no words for him. I couldn’t ask for a better son.”
