School: Upper Moreland
Tennis, Basketball, Soccer
Favorite athlete: Andre Agassi
Favorite team: Philadelphia Phillies
Favorite memory competing in sports: “Scoring a 40-yard free kick on my mom’s birthday during the first round of soccer playoffs last year.”
Most embarrassing/funniest thing that has happened while competing in sports: “I managed to fall down in front of a gym full of people when I was in-bounding a ball during a basketball game.”
Music on iPod: Blink-182, All Time Low, Eminem, Fall Out Boy, Paramore, Nickelback, and classic rock
Future plans: Attend Lebanon Valley College and major in secondary math education
Words to live by: “It’s not the size of the dog in the fight; it’s the size of the fight in the dog.”
One goal before turning 30: “Change somebody’s life”
One thing people don’t know about me: “I love going camping and taking long road trips with my friends and family.”
There are exactly 1,440 minutes in every day.
It’s a safe bet Christie Graf uses just about all of them.
The Upper Moreland senior is captain of three varsity sports –tennis, basketball and soccer, but that’s just the beginning. An outstanding student who is ranked in the top 10 in her class, Graf is a member of the National Honor Society and has received Distinguished Honors every year since middle school. She is a section editor of the yearbook, and for the past two years, Graf has been president of Upper Moreland’s Key Club.
For good measure, she still finds time to be actively involved with her church, First Presbyterian Church of Willow Grove, where she is a member of the bell choir.
“It’s difficult at times, but I would have done the same thing over again,” Graf said of her busy schedule. “It’s easier to stay with school work because you have a set schedule.
“It’s a lot of fun. You meet a lot of good people and make a lot of new friends. Also, I love playing sports, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.”
The key, according to Graf, is simple.
“It’s time management,” she said. “I’m very busy, and the school year is stressful, but it all falls into place. Once you get used to it, it’s easier to do everything.”
Despite her heavy workload, Graf has managed to excel both on and off the court.
“Everything she does – she works at it 100 percent,” tennis coach Angela McClenton said. “She’s in my AP Spanish class, and she gives everything her all. She tries to do her best all the time.
“She works hard. Nowadays, you have a lot of kids who feel they’re entitled. She’s not like that. She feels she should work for things – do things the old-fashioned way. I can’t say enough good things about her.”
Basketball coach Jane Meade echoed similar sentiments.
“You can totally count on her and trust her,” the Golden Bears’ coach said. “With the team, she would just pretty much do everything and anything we needed, and we needed a lot from her. At times, I almost felt like she had too much to do and to carry, but she always welcomed that.
“She just had a wonderful attitude. She was always very coachable and a great kid. She’s respectful and just a hard worker.”
Coming as no surprise – Graf carries that work ethic onto the field and court.
“They don’t make them like that kid,” soccer coach Joe Joyce said. “She’s a really, really neat kid. She’s a warrior, and she leads by example.
“You don’t see many kids come through the doors that get on the field and give blood, sweat and tears and leave it all out on the field, but the minute she leaves the field – boom, she’s a girl again, talking about what she’s doing on Saturday night and that sort of stuff.”
Graf has been competing in sports for as long as she can remember.
In middle school, she played tennis, basketball and lacrosse but in high school traded in lacrosse for soccer, a sport she’s been playing year-round since she was a youngster.
Graf took up tennis in seventh grade because she wanted to play a fall sport. For the past two years, she was the number one singles player for the Golden Bears’ varsity and last fall earned second team all-league honors . Not a bad outcome for someone who tried the sport simply because her parents said it would be ‘a good thing to play.’
That’s not to say Graf didn’t invest time in the sport – she did. She took lessons and attended camps during the offseason.
“She’s a really good player,” McClenton said. “When she knows the other person is better, she goes out and says, ‘I’m doing what I can, I’m doing the best I can, but I’m having fun.’
“Many of the kids have more experience than her, but she’s relentless. She gets into their heads, and she’s the last person on the court and going after it.”
Graf’s never-say-die, all-out approach all but led to the undoing of several highly regarded opponents.
“I don’t like giving up,” Graf said. “Even if I’m losing 6-1 and going into the second set, I’m still going to keep playing. There’s always a shot that you can win.
“Some people stop running for the ball. I don’t stop. I don’t give up on a shot. Even if I don’t get it, I still run to it. I just keep playing – I don’t stop. If I keep going, they get angrier, and it becomes more of a mind game. If people get upset, it makes it easier for them to make mistakes.”
McClenton admits she has enjoyed watching Graf making some of the league’s elite players sweat.
“All some of those kids do is play tennis,” the Golden Bears’ coach said. “Christie plays other sports.
“When tennis season is over, those kids go indoors and play Juniors. Christie plays basketball, she plays soccer. When Christie played someone who was better, she didn’t say, ‘Oh she’s better than I am.’ Christie pulled everything out. When she saw an opening she went for it. That’s why she got into the girls’ head.”
“Some of the players are better than me, and I know that,” Graf acknowledged. “It’s nice to get them frustrated and give them a challenge, let them know it’s not just a walk in the park. I don’t want to be the person – ‘Oh, she’s really easy to beat.’ They’re going to have to beat me to win.
“I get upset if I lose, but it’s not the end of the world. There are more important things than winning a tennis match.”
Graf brings the same approach to the basketball court where she has been a three-year varsity player.
“I just like to have fun,” Graf said. “We lose a lot, but we put a good effort out there, and we did well for our team.
“We set goals, and when we accomplish them, it’s better than winning the game because that makes you better as a player and as a team. We didn’t lose as badly as we have in past years. It was nice.”
Graf was an invaluable member of the team.
“She could play any of the positions,” Meade said. “We got pressured a lot, and she was the one that could best handle the ball.
“On our zone defense, she was down low. She also got a lot of rebounds and always had good position.”
Just how valuable was she to her squad?
“I didn’t want to take her off the court,” Meade said. “She often played the entire game.
“She’s a winner and would do whatever it took and just wanted her team to succeed. She did whatever she could. I don’t want to discredit any of the other players. I appreciated them all, but she just kept us together out there.”
If success were measured only by wins and losses, the season just completed would not qualify as a success since the Golden Bears did not win a game in league play, but the team showed a marked improvement under Meade.
In their final game of the season, Upper Moreland lost by just three points to a Wissahickon squad that went on to defeat previously undefeated Cheltenham the very next day. It was a far cry from Graf’s sophomore year when her team was humiliated by Methacton 71-4.
“We’re not losing like that anymore,” Graf said. “We lost games by one point, 10 points. Getting closer and closer every game was nice.
“We’re more competitive. It would be nice to win more, but we are getting better as a team. We’re here, and we’re not going anywhere.”
Graf has been playing varsity soccer for three years after being a swing player as a freshman. She was the captain of her team the last two.
“She’s got her act together, and just her leadership skills – she’s first on the line running, always the first one finishing all the drills,” Joyce said. “She doesn’t coast. She gives everything she has on the field. We had decent seniors last year, but she was definitely the center of our team, and she certainly will be again.”
“I don’t mind leading people,” Graf said. “When we go running, I try to be encouraging. If someone needs to talk, I’m there for them on the team.”
Graf will be attending Lebanon Valley College where she plans to major in secondary math education. She hasn’t decided which sport she will play but says she will be doing something.
“I’ll probably play one sport, and if I don’t do that, I’ll play intramurals,” she said. “That wasn’t the big thing. My education is more important than playing sports.”
It’s a safe bet community service will also be part of Graf’s future. As president of her school’s Key Club, she has helped organize blood drives and Special Olympic dances. The club volunteers at food pantries and helps out with the middle schools and elementary schools as well as with community events that need volunteers.
“It’s a lot of fun going out and helping people,” she said. “Once again you meet new people, and just knowing you helped someone – I enjoy it a lot.”
Not surprisingly, Graf, according to Meade, commands a lot of respect in school as well.
“She’s one of those student-athletes that lead by example and teachers respect her, put a lot of trust in her as a student-athlete in the classroom and the playing field,” Meade said.
Trust that Graf has earned after years of committing herself to everything she has been part of during a remarkable high school career at Upper Moreland.
