Sportswriter Honored For Three Decades in the Game

Along with the two coaches, 12 former athletes and two teams recognized in the inaugural East Hampton High School Sports Hall of Fame induction ceremony at the Bonackers’ homecoming on Saturday, The East Hampton Star's inveterate sports reporter Jack Graves will be made an honorary member.

The longtime reporter has become something of an ubiquitous fixture at East Hampton games, standing on the sidelines, furiously writing notes and snapping pictures of Bonac athletes and teams. Graves, 72, recalls that he began reporting for The Star on Oct. 15 in 1967, but it wasn’t until the spring of 1979 that he inherited the mantle of sports reporter. Today, he’s been involved with the Bonackers longer than anyone who is coaching them.

“I really wasn’t at all interested in professional sports,” Graves admitted, explaining that he had never imagined he’d be covering teams more than three decades later. After all, he had been a copy boy at The New York Times, a junior reporter for the now-defunct Long Island Press and a beat reporter for The Star before taking the sports position. “I figured what the hell, I might as well give it a try,” Graves said.

It didn’t take long for him to fall in love with the job and the teams he covers. It’s not unusual to see Graves cheering mightily or shouting in frustration during the highs and lows of varsity competition. “You become a foaming at the mouth Bonac fan,” he said, describing his devotion to East Hampton sports and what a unique situation it is for a reporter covering local teams for the hometown paper. “It’s totally partisan—you wouldn’t get away with that at a national newspaper.”

For Graves, being allowed to openly root for Bonac is part of the fun, but he has never been afraid to point out the more grievous errors, when necessary. “I get the facts straight,” he said, though Graves always tries to be kind. “We’re covering kids,” he pointed out and noted that he also played school sports growing up in Sewickley, PA, right outside of Pittsburgh.

Like a true fan, Graves is able to rattle off the names of the best athletes and the dates when teams won county championships or competed in the state finals over the last 30 years. He fondly recalls the Bonac boys’ basketball team winning the state championship in 1989 and making the state finals in 2008, not to mention the successes of the girls’ softball, field hockey and volleyball teams and boys’ lacrosse and soccer.

"I think I’ve written about 50 sports during the course of my career,” Graves said. “I counted them once.”

Throughout his years of covering sports, Graves has also written about adult leagues, local clubs and road races as well as individual sports. “I did a kind of countrified version of George Plimpton,” he said, explaining how he took various lessons, including horseback riding. “I had fun from the beginning.”

But Graves said he has always been “very earnest about covering the teams.” In many ways he has become a valuable part, if not a member, of the teams he covers, and when Bonac does well, Graves shares that joy. “I love to ride the bandwagon,” he said.

Perhaps being tapped as an honorary member of East Hampton High School’s Sports Hall of Fame confirmed Graves’ membership among the Bonackers’ great champions. “It was very nice of them, I thought,” he said of the recognition.

“I just got lucky,” Graves said, looking back on his career. “I’m doing what I love to do, still having fun, still in reasonably good shape.”