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Ted Graves is finally coming home.

For more than 25 years, Graves has lived in Liberty. Now he has the chance to do the one thing he’s always wanted to do — coach high school athletes in his home town.

“I’ve always thought in the back of my mind that it would be great getting into the Liberty district,” Graves said. “Better late than never.”

As it turns out, the timing couldn’t be any better for Liberty North. Graves has been named the Eagles’ first head track and field coach.

With 26 years of teaching and coaching experience under his belt, Graves brings a wide array of expertise to the table.

Local track fans may recognize Graves since he has spent the past 12 years with his alma mater William Jewell College, including serving as head coach of the track and field program from 2005-2009.

Graves remained on the Cardinals’ staff as the throws coach this spring, a position he plans to continue to fill next year while coaching at North.

“His expertise was far and above any of the other candidates for the track job,” Liberty North athletic director Bob Kernell said. “Ted’s going to do a great job for us.”

Before catching on at Jewell, Graves spent 15 years coaching in nearby Kearney. Graves spent numerous seasons as an assistant coach in football, girls basketball and track.

Most notably, Graves closed out the final 10 years of his coaching tenure at Kearney in the head track position. During that span, Graves helped bring a state-of-the-art track and field facility, a project that has landed Kearney as the host site for the state-qualifying Class 3 sectional meet since the mid-1990s.

At the end of his run, Graves guided the Bulldogs boys and girls teams to five district titles in his final five years, turning the program into one of the area’s best. Kearney hit a high-water mark when the boys finished third as a team at the 1998 state championships.

“I feel very fortunate to have been able to reinvent the program in Kearney,” said Graves, who continues

to teach in the Kearney School District. “They had had success before then, but they had never had the state trophies or the sustained success that we had. To be able to teach and coach in Kearney, a great district, for all these years, I couldn’t have asked for anything better.

“Then to get to coach at my alma mater, that was a dream job for me. Now being able to start a program in the town that I live, at a new school, in a whole new environment, it’s just gravy. Hopefully, it’s the final chapter of my teaching and coaching book.”

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