October 14, 2022
Grant Hill Spins Tale About How Earl ‘Butch’ Graves Inspired His Shot at Basketball at Black Men Xcel
Dozens of funny stories were shared at the BLACK ENTERPRISE 2022 Black Men Xcel Summit, however, it was a story NBA Hall of Famer Grant Hill told about how he got interested in basketball that stunned the crowd.
Hill, who received an Xcel award for his business acumen, real estate ventures and commitment to helping Black men fight prostate cancer, took the stage Thursday night and told the story about growing up and going to his first basketball game with his dad at his alma mater Yale University.
Hill admitted that he was a football guy and never had b-ball on his radar. That is until Hill caught the 6-foot-3 BLACK ENTERPRISE CEO who played for Yale dominating on the court. That changed everything.
“My father played in the NFL for 13 years and I grew up always loving ball. When my dad retired he wanted to reconnect with his school, Yale University,” Hill began his tale.
“I remember in 1981 and 1982 going to Payne Whitney gym, at the time I had never been to a real basketball game but we watched and there was this guy out there who was about 6’3 and was just unstoppable. I went a couple of times that year and later that year I got to watch Georgetown and Patrick Ewing, and so between Ewing and Butch Graves I converted From being a football guy to a basketball guy.”
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Graves was a Yale Bulldog from 1980 to 1984 and is one of the most prolific men’s basketball players in Yale University history. Graves was a four-year starter, team captain and still Yale’s all-time leading scorer with 2090 career points.
Additionally, Graves is the Ivy league’s third all-time leading scorer and holds several school scoring records including the record for the most 30-point games in a season with five. Graves was selected in the third round of the National Basketball Association (NBA) draft by the Philadelphia 76ers. Graves had a brief professional basketball career with the Milwaukee Bucks and Cleveland Cavaliers playing in four games before leaving the sport to attend Harvard Business School
Ed Gordon, the president of Ed Gordon Media, who was the M.C. of the Xcel Awards, told his own story about Graves as Hill walked off the stage.
“You all remember the show Good Times? a lot of you watched it, some of you have seen the reruns,” Gordon told the crowd. “I will tell Grant I feel like Florida Evans after James died because I thought this was going to be the year I didn’t have to hear Butch say ‘Come here Ed, do you know how much I averaged when I was at Yale?’”
If you didn’t know “Butch” played basketball check out this story.