The first time Joey Graham experienced flying as a tot, he was hooked. He also was, well, messy.
“I sat in the back seat of this little prop plane and upchucked all over myself,” Graham said, remembering his first flight with his father, Joe, a Navy jet pilot assigned to aircraft carriers. “When we landed, I had to take off all my clothes and was walking around the airport in my underwear. But I was little. I didn’t care.”
Despite that rather inauspicious introduction, Graham, Oklahoma State’s senior forward, has no fear of flying. In dreams, he says he flies without the benefit of an airplane. In reality, he got his private pilot’s license last September and now is working on his instrument rating. His ultimate goal is being a private pilot for corporate jets.
“It’s the freedom and control you have,” Graham, who holds a degree in aviation management, said in explaining his love of flight. “The aerodynamics are amazing if you just think about it–something propelling itself through the air with nothing to hold it up.”
In high school in Brandon, Fla., Graham’s teammates nicknamed him “Superman.” But it wasn’t for the flying he did with his dad. It was for the skywalking he did on the court.
First in high school, then at the University of Central Florida and now at Oklahoma State, Graham’s high-wire act has left opposing coaches feeling a bit like he did the first time he went up in pop’s Cessna. But what really sickens them is that Graham is far more than just a one-trick slam man.
The 6-foot-7-inch Graham, who weighs a chiseled 225 pounds, can play near or above the basket as well as on the perimeter. Consequently, he’s considered the Big 12’s toughest matchup headache by most coaches, including Kelvin Sampson.
“Who can guard him?” the Oklahoma coach asked after Graham scored 22 points in OSU’s 79-67 victory over the Sooners. “Can anybody? He’s too strong for the guards and too quick for the small forwards.”
More Top Picks Best Amazon Prime Day Gaming Desk Deals 2026
Not surprisingly, Graham ranks third in the Big 12 in scoring at 17.8 points per game. He and Kansas forward Wayne Simien, the league’s leading scorer at 18.6, are the top candidates for conference player of the year. Their teams clash Sunday at Lawrence, Kan., in a showdown that will go a long way in determining the Big 12 regular-season champ and No. 1 seed in the league tourney.
“He’s a pretty unique, special player,” OSU assistant coach James Dickey said of Graham. “He can shoot the three, which forces people to come out and get on him. Then he can put the ball on the floor and get around them. He has a midrange game. That’s pretty rare these days.”
Graham’s versatility is a significant reason the Cowboys have a chance to return to the Final Four for a second straight season. Besides some remarkable rim-rattling dunks, he also possesses good ballhandling skills and has a surprisingly soft shooting touch.
He is the Big 12’s second-leading free-throw shooter at 86.3 percent (107 of 124). And though Graham doesn’t take a lot of three-point shots, he has proved he can make them–a team-best 51.3 percent (20 of 39).
Though Graham appreciates his ability to shoot from the arc, his passion is, understandably, flying to the basket.
“When I’m gliding through the air, it’s sort of like flying a plane,” he said. “The freedom, the control . . . there are a lot of similarities.”