By Ole Miss Public Relations

OXFORD – Former Jones County Junior College basketball and football coach B.L. “Country” Graham was selected to the University of Mississippi basketball “Team of the Century” as part of the University’s celebration of 100 years of Ole Miss basketball.

“Country” Graham was chosen to the Helms Foundation All-American squad after his 1936 senior season. He was also selected to the 1938 All-SEC first team after leading the SEC in scoring every year he played at Ole Miss.


During his career, he set 35 SEC records, and pioneered a one-handed hoop shot called the “Graham fade-away.”

Graham was hired in 1939 by Jones’ head coach John Read to be school’s first assistant football coach. He would become the first assistant coach to be elevated to head coach at JCJC.

Graham, a Baldwyn native, coached basketball for 11 years at JCJC, winning three state championships and finishing in the upper division the other years. He was also head football coach at JCJC for three years (1947-49), winning one football championship and finishing second and fourth the other years. He resigned after the 1949 season to become head basketball coach at Ole Miss.

In 1978, Sports Illustrated named him as one of the top seven college basketball players in America in the decade of the ’30s. Graham was the first basketball All-American in Mississippi, the first basketball player in the Mississippi Sports Hall of Fame, charter member (1963) and the first basketball player in the Ole Miss Athletic Hall of Fame (1986). He was also named to the 1974 All-Time SEC Basketball Team by the Orlando Sentinel Star. He was the winningest coach in the history of Ole Miss basketball.

The highlight of a Rebel Basketball Reunion Weekend in January 2002 honored Graham by retiring his jersey.

His wife, the former Marie Martin, is from Laurel. Her sister, Betty Martin, lives in Laurel.