The multi-sport athlete is revered here at MaxPreps but
Aaron Graves of
Southeast Valley (Gowrie, Iowa) might just take the cake. The Iowa-signed football star, who led his team to a state title in the fall, finished off a remarkable winter season starring on the basketball court and wrestling mat.
And yes, we don't mean just participating.
The 6-foot-5, 270-pound defensive lineman, ranked the No. 3 senior football player overall in the state and the No. 16 defensive lineman in the country by
247Sports, finished fourth at the Iowa High School Athletic Association 2A state wrestling tournament for the heavyweight class.
He entered the meet 26-1, pinned two opponents before falling 4-1 in the semifinals to eventual champion Easton Fleshman, and then losing the third-place match Ethan Hooyer 8-5 to finish 28-3 on the season. Not bad in the wrestling hotbed of Iowa.
A football-wrestling combination isn't entirely uncommon, but it's what Graves did on the basketball court that caught national acclaim.
The night of his first-round state-tournament pin on Friday, Graves scored a game-high 33 points in a season-ending 56-51 2A district semifinal loss to Roland-Story.
With all that brawn and muscle, Graves hit four 3-pointers in the third quarter that appeared to give his Jaguars command. But Roland-Story outscored Southeast Valley 19-13 in the fourth quarter to beat the Jags (12-11) for the second time this year.
Besides Graves, no one on his squad scored more than six points.
"Aaron had a great game and a big third quarter," Southeast Valley coach Kyle Johnson told the
Messenger News. Even though it might have been his last competitive basketball game, few, if any, will be able to claim scoring 33 points the same night winning a wrestling match in the state tournament.
We were hard-pressed to find high-level wrestlers who played basketball in high school, though the
sportster found 10 WWE performers who had hoop backgrounds, ranking
The Undertaker at No. 1 following his college career at Angelina College.
247Sports national recruiting analyst Allen Trieu thinks Graves' 33-point/wrestling win//same day story may someday be told by NFL commentators. Certainly by college color men.
Trieu believes Graves has a shot at the NFL and even made a comparison of him to Colts offensive tackle Braden Smith, who was a two-way star at Olathe South (Kan). Graves was the state's Gatorade Player of the Year, had 63 tackles and 7.5 tackles. He was picked to play in the Army All-American Bowl in San Antonio.
"(Graves) is an interesting prospect because he can play offensive and defensive line at an equally high level," Trieu wrote. "(He) plays with (an) outstanding motor and play-speed on both sides of the ball."
Aaron Graves, Southeast Valley
Courtesy of 247Sports
