Inducted in 2009
Prep Coach (1930-1942)

Induction Video

Earl Winfield Graham was born on March 24, 1903 in Akron, Ohio. He was the son of Hannah Griffith Graham, a homemaker, and Louis Winfield Graham, who worked in the rubber industry in one capacity or another for most of his adult life — not surprising for Akron, “The Rubber Capital of the World.” Hannah and Louis also had three daughters: Ethel, Midred and Catherine. Earl was the oldest. 

Graham arrived at Fordham University in 1923 on a baseball scholarship. Under Rose Hill's legendary coach, Jack Coffey, Graham played centerfield and proved himself a formidable batsman. He would also spend some time on the hardwood during his Fordham career and was described as “a flashy basketball forward.”
 
But it was actually as a member of the football squad under coach Frank Gargan that Graham left his mark on Fordham athletics, playing on the varsity for four years. Despite his small stature — 5’6” and weighing just 150 pounds — Zev did just about everything on the team. He called all the plays at quarterback and was a deceptive, shifty runner, and an excellent passer. He even drop-kicked the team’s extra points and field goals. The 1925 Fordham College yearbook describes him as “Fordham’s greatest since Frankie Frisch,” a reference to the 1916 Fordham Prep graduate and fellow Hall of Honor member who went on to have an enormously successful professional baseball career after his Rose Hill days. 
 
During his first fall at Fordham, Earl Graham inherited his nickname from a championship racehorse. Zev was an acclaimed colt during the 1920s and was often ridden by one of the greatest jockeys of all time, coincidentally another Earl — Earl Sande. The horse had won both the Kentucky Derby and the Belmont Stakes. A match race was set up with the English Derby winner, Papyrus, to determine the world champion. The quadruped Zev won the race by five lengths on October 20, 1923 — by chance, the same day that Fordham played Lehigh. Lehigh won the game by a score of 9-6, but it was Earl Graham’s performance that stole the spotlight. In the fourth quarter, with Lehigh on Fordham’s 10-yard line, Graham picked up a fumble and ran almost the length of the field to score Fordham’s only touchdown. His feat was immediately compared to that of the equine, and he was called “Zev” for the rest of his life.
      
Stellar performances were Zev Graham’s hallmark for the remainder of his Fordham career. In a 1924 game against heavily favored archrival Georgetown, the Rams faced the additional difficulties of having a coach in the hospital with appendicitis and a field at the Polo Grounds that was soaked by heavy rains previous night. But Fordham pulled an upset and won the game 9-6, largely because of Graham. He scored with a touchdown and a field goal, and came within five yards of scoring two more touchdowns, stopped only by the muddy field.

During the 1925 season, Fordham had an 8-1-0 record, and Graham had his best year, garnering an All-American Honorable Mention. The Fordham Traditio describes a 1926 Fordham-Georgetown rematch, Zev’s final game for the Rams:

The Hoya's 285 lb. monster defender "Babe" Connaughton battered Zev, and Georgetown took a comfortable lead. However, late in the final quarter, Zev, playing safety, made what has been described as the greatest defensive play in Fordham football history. Plansky broke through the Fordham line, and all that stood between him and the goal was the redoubtable Graham. The undersized safety, now limping from Connaughton's beating, moved up to challenge Plansky. The ballcarrier ran at Graham, feinted left and then hurdled high over his head. The doughty Ram grabbed the fullback just above the ankle, and Plansky cartwheeled in the air before falling head first to the turf. The dazed fullback was helped from the field, and two plays later an era ended as Graham was removed from the game. Zev limped from the field to a tremendous roar which shook the stadium. The Polo Grounds fans reportedly delayed the game for fifteen minutes as, on their feet, they cheered in tribute to a Fordham immortal.

After graduation, Zev made a natural transition to coaching, starting at All Hallows High School. Then, in 1930, another of the Prep’s all-time great coaches, Mike Dunn, died suddenly of spinal meningitis and Graham returned to Rose Hill succeeding Dunn as coach of the three major sports — football, baseball and basketball. During his 12 years at the Prep, Graham’s football teams had only two losing seasons. His 1933 basketball squad won the City Championship and placed fourth in the Glens Falls Tournament. In baseball, his 1935 and 1936 teams won the CHSAA City Championship. All in all, Zev Graham’s teams of the 1930s boasted some of the greatest athletes in the school’s history, the most famous being fellow Hall of Honor member George “Snuffy” Stirnweiss, Class of 1936, who played football, baseball and basketball for Zev Graham, and would go on to a noteworthy career with the New York Yankees.
 
During his Rose Hill tenure, Zev married Helen Carns. They would have seven children — James, Eileen, Bernadette, Robert, Edwin, Kathryn and John — and thirty grandchildren.
 
In 1942, Zev was lured away from Fordham Prep to Brooklyn Prep, where he became the school’s signature coach of the 1940s. After his time in Brooklyn, Zev coached at Haverstraw High School in Rockland County and at Valley Stream South High School on Long Island, where he spent the remainder of his coaching career. In 1971, he was inducted into Fordham University’s Athletic Hall of Fame. 

Earl “Zev” Graham passed away at the age of 77 in August of 1980.
 
Great coaches do not just win games. They instill indelible qualities that stay with the youngsters they coach for the rest of their lives. The following are the words of the Class of 1936 as they prepared to leave the Prep and make their way into the world:

Coach Graham infuses into his cohorts his own unquenchable spirit and inexhaustible energy, which spurs them on beyond themselves and guides and leads them to new and greater heights.  Our parting wish and prayer is that he will always impress the future Prepsters with the same qualities of leadership and gentlemanliness with which he has impressed us.