Graf still synonymous with speed at 60

JOLIET – After being on the cutting edge of speed training throughout a long teaching career, it’s not surprising that Tim Graf can still bring it.

While most 60-year-olds have tossed in the towel on competition, the Joliet native and Crest Hill resident is still going strong, as evidenced by his two state records in sprints for the 60-64 age group earlier this summer at the USA Track & Field Illinois Masters and Open Championships at Olivet Nazarene University.

And after running Graf Speed Enhancement, the nation’s initial speed and agility program, for nearly 30 years, Graf shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon.

Graf, a Class AA champion for Joliet East in the 100-yard dash in 1976, has set most of the state marks and won numerous titles during his 20-year career in Masters competition.

At the state meet in Bourbonnais, he set new records in both the 100 (12.83 seconds) and the 200 (27.28) despite running into a 15 mph headwind in each event.

His times were also the best of the day for Masters athletes aged 40 and older. And his 100 time ranks sixth in the nation for his age, while his 200 time is 10th best.

“The biggest thing is that I train myself and all of the guys that I run against have track clubs and coaches,” Graf said. “They’re also pretty much retired and this is all they do while I run Graf Speed Enhancement, am a teacher at Stateville Correctional and train myself as an athlete. My philosophy is that when it’s time to go out and run or lift weights, it’s like, if I don’t do this, what else would I be doing? I’d be sitting on my butt watching TV, so I go out and run. And when you’re teaching speed to athletes, it helps if you are still an example.”

Graf is quick to credit the many outstanding people that he’s been fortunate to be able to work with throughout the years to not only establish his career as a runner, but also to be among the first to fully understand just how important speed would be in all athletics.

“It helped that I had an Olympic track coach, Sam Bell, for four years at Indiana,” Graf said. “Coach Bell was a father figure to me, and one day he pulled me aside and told me that while I was an excellent runner, that I would be a better coach, which I kind of felt was a putdown at the time. But he was right, and I became and a runner and a coach for the rest of my life. And Ken Jakalski, the track coach at Lisle, is my mentor, teacher and friend, and he was the first person to tell me that what I was doing was being a speed coach.

“Believe me, I’ve had a lot of help to get here and I never could have done it on my own. The locomotion experts at Rice University who the government pays to research speed, agility and quickness, I’ve been studying under those guys since 1995. Everything that I do has been researched by them. I’ve sent them scenarios, they’ll do it in the lab and send me back the best way to do it. So I’m 60 years old and am still a student.”

Although his times obviously aren’t the same as when Graf was capturing Big Ten championships in a variety of sprints with the Hoosiers, his approach isn’t any different.

“Surfaces and shoes have changed, but accelerating your body through maximum force and minimum time to the ground is still basically the same,” Graf said. “And it’s still a lot of work and after I run, I have to go down the stairs sideways, holding onto the rail since I am 60 years old. But the really interesting thing is the physiology feeling of sprinting. If I’m running a 12.4 100 meters, it feels exactly like a 10.4 100 meters did when I was in college. The start, transition, run and finish, is the same, but my body can’t react that fast.”

Graf is proud to be from Joliet and feels obligated to give back to others from the area.

“I’ve had a lot of help and been very blessed and have had so many good people in my life give to me so that I want to give back to the community,” Graf said. “I have a degree from Joliet Junior College and have trained there since 1992, and Wayne King and the people there are not only very supportive of me, but of the community. And during the week in the school year I’m at the Nationals Softball Training Academy in Rockdale with Larry Brzezinski.

“I’ve always had one mantra as a speed coach, and that’s to work hard but to have fun doing that. To see kids light up whenever they get a personal-best time and to also see them get self-confidence and to be on top of the world, it’s amazing and so rewarding for me to see them improve as they do. They keep me young, it never gets old and I thoroughly enjoy it.”