John McGraw Position: Assistant Coach Alma Mater: Massachusetts, 1996

John McGraw begins his third season on the bench for the Thundering Herd after being named a full time assistant on June 27, 2008.

Considered to be a rising star in the women's college basketball ranks, McGraw was recently tabbed as the 4th best assistant coach in all of women's basketball by National Women's Basketball Insider.

Prior to his appointment of full time assistant, McGraw spent the 2008 season as a graduate assistant with the Herd.

McGraw began his coaching career in 2001 when he founded the Queen's (NY) Rim Rockers. It was during this first year in which his networking skills propelled him on his current path. After a year in which McGraw recruited some of NYC's best young players to the Rim Rockers, he merged with another upstart program Exodus-NYC, to form what is now widely considered to be one of the nation's elite AAU programs. With Exodus, he not only helped develop some of today's brightest stars including Kia Vaughn and Epiphany Prince, but he spearheaded the branding and expansion of the Exodus franchise which now includes 12 teams in 4 states. McGraw was a coach and top administrator for Exodus until his appointment with the Herd.

During his time with Exodus, McGraw also embarked on a coaching odyssey that included stops as a NCAA Division 3 head coach, a prep school head coach and as an athletic director & head coach at a 2nd prep School. As well McGraw found the time to found Big Apple Recruiting, the parent company that runs the Big Apple Tournament of Champions, the Big Apple X-Mas Classic and Big Apple All-American Camp.

His first professional coaching stop came in the 2004-05 season when McGraw volunteered as an assistant coach at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, an NCAA D-3 school in NYC. Seven games into a dismal 1-6 season, the head coach resigned and McGraw resumed the reigns. Following his appointment to head coach, the Bloodhounds garnered multiple player-of-the-week awards, the team was highlighted on D3hoops.com for a 10 game winning streak and two players were named CUNY All-Conference. John Jay finished with a record of 17-10 earning the school's first post season tournament bid in history. McGraw finished with a 16-4 record and was runner-up for CUNY Coach-of-the-Year.

Following his extraordinary year at John Jay, McGraw headed south as the Athletic Director and Head Women's Coach at the Patterson School in Lenoir, NC. It was here McGraw may have made his biggest impact in Women's Basketball to date. He led his team to a 25-2 record during the 2005-06 season and two National Championships. The Patterson School won the NACA (National Assoc. of Christian Athletes) Tournament and was named EBA (Educator's Basketball Assoc.) National Champs.

During this run, McGraw developed Angel McCoughtry, a raw but explosive athlete who went on to be the 2009 #1 overall pick in the WNBA Draft by the Atlanta Dream. Immediately prior to his time in Huntington, WV, McGraw served as the head coach at Notre Dame Prep, in Fitchburg, MA. At Notre Dame Prep, McGraw led the team to a runner-up finish in the 2005-06 NACA Tournament while winning the Big Apple X-Mas Classic in both seasons at the school.

He amassed a 90-14 record as a head coach at those three stops.

At Notre Dame Prep, McGraw coached current Herd players Tania Walters and Rashedah Henriques. In prep school he has also coached players who have gone on to play for major Division I-A programs including North Carolina, Louisville, Syracuse, South Florida, Colorado, Washington State and Memphis.

The Union-Endicott (NY) HS graduate returned to his native Massachusetts where he graduated with a bachelor's degree in sport management from the University of Massachusetts in 1996. During his time at UMass he was a manager for John Calipari's storied Minutemen. He is currently working towards his master's degree in athletic administration at Marshall.