Dick Graves coached the greatest boys basketball team that ever touched the Barnstable High School Red Raider parquet and when his relatively brief but monumentally successful coaching career at BHS came to a close in the winter of 1976, he had suprassed Vernon B. Bearse’s all-time mark of 110-59 with his win-loss record of 128-45.
      The true hallmark of Graves’ career, however, came in 1970-71 in just his third season at the Red Raider helm. That year, Coach Graves placed five first-team Capeway Conference starting all-stars on the floor and for 25 straight games his boys did not lose, a basketball record that has never seriously been challenged since it was set. The 1970-71 team won the coveted Class C State Championship title at Boston Garden that late winter, only to fall to Boston English in the Class A Overall State Championship Game.Regardless, Graves’ impact bore more import than just one season. With four league championships in just eight years, Graves amassed the 15th best win-loss percentage of all-time, in all sports at the school. His .740 winning percentage is the best boys basketball mark before or since his tenure at BHS and the countless young men he mentored through the tough, fast, physical game of basketball is forever etched upon the foundation that is the Red Raiders legacy.

     Following the 1975-76 season, Coach Graves was promoted within the school system to serve as the assistant principal at BHS.