Graves loves to play lacrosse and football. Wrestling and weightlifting and even baseball are also pastimes. He never met a textbook he didn't like, either.But his real passion is what probably made it easy for the Lione Fund members to award him a Lione scholarship.

"I like to help people," Graves said. "I want to be a doctor or a teacher or a coach. I just like to help kids."Graves was responding to a question that asked what he wanted to do when he is finished with school. But, realistically, he's already started working in that direction.

Graves' proposal of forming a "Connecticut Youth Corps" was selected by state Education Committee member and state Senator Andrew McDonald (D-Stamford) as the winning entry in McDonald's annual "Who Wants to Change the World" contest.

Graves testified in Hartford before the Education Committee to push his idea which would give high school juniors various public service jobs around the state. Graves' proposal, Senate Bill 913, could soon be passed into law. Graves, an honors student, has also spent considerable time being a hospital volunteer, tutoring a second grader and he also spent three days during his February vacation this year in New Orleans with his dad and Habitat for Humanity doing reconstruction work for Hurricane Katrina victims. "I want to give back to the community," Graves said.

Graves, a two-year starter on the Westhill boys lacrosse team and the football squad's backup tight end, has a lot in common with Lione. "When I applied for the scholarship I read a lot about Coach Lione and found out that he was quite a man," Graves said. "He wasn't just about winning; he taught kids to communicate and apply what they learned in sports to life. He wanted to help people."

For the same reason, Graves, who has suffered from pancreatitis since he was two, feels he could make a good doctor."I've been in and out of hospitals since I was two and I know some doctors could, well, help you more emotionally and mentally than they do. I'd like to try to do that." But first comes the rest of his high school career and lacrosse and football games.

"I like lacrosse the best," he said. "I picked it up three years ago in middle school and just wanted to get better and be the best I can be. I don't think I've reached that level yet." It seems hard to believe, but the same is probably true for his off-field endeavors.