For about 10 days, Khalil Graham lived alone on the streets of New York City. He was 17.

With $4 in his pocket to begin with, Graham said he slept on park benches, rode the subway at night and ate whatever he could find.

The same Khalil Graham, now 22, was selected by University of Richmond faculty and staff as the featured student speaker at UR's Sunday baccalaureate, a celebration of motivation, faith, dance and music that preceded the school's graduation ceremony.

Graham, a former Spiders football player, graduated from UR in three years. He left with a 3.15 grade-point average and a degree in interdisciplinary studies, with a concentration in African-American studies, urban policy and practice and social science.

The topic of his Sunday-morning speech: What kind of mark do you want to leave on society? Graham personally answered that question while wandering around New York.

"I found myself not only a high school dropout but homeless and without direction," he told the Robins Center audience.

Graham, in an interview last week, said during those 10 days he encountered several other lost young people, "kids who didn't have anybody to tell them they can find [motivation] in themselves if they look hard enough. I said 'I want to be that kind of person who can be inspirational.'"

Graham returned to his Brooklyn home, and "he was just more willing to listen, and that was the turning point," according to Sandra Graham, Khalil Graham's grandmother with whom he lived.

He eventually enrolled in a Connecticut prep school, The Loomis Chaffee School, with the assistance of Prep for Prep, a New York City program that places promising minority students.

Graham came to UR on a need-based scholarship. "It was a positive place to be," Graham said. "You have to go to a place you feel you're going to grow, and I feel like I have." He was a reserve linebacker on the Spiders' football team for three years.

Former UR coach Dave Clawson, now Tennessee's offensive coordinator, refers to Graham as "The Mayor," because of Graham's popularity on Richmond's campus.

Clawson credited Graham with behind-the-scenes efforts to ease the transition to UR for many freshman players who did not initially feel comfortable at the school. Clawson also praised Graham for his willingness to represent UR's student-athletes on committees and serve as a speaker when one was requested from the football program.

"He was one of those kids who you wished was a better player," Clawson said of Graham, "because he sure did all of the right things."

Graham said his father has been incarcerated since Graham was a child. He lived with mother, Eva Graham, grandmother and two younger brothers.

A man connected with the famed Riverside Church Youth Basketball Program (AAU) convinced Graham that he should leave the school he was attending, Brooklyn's Poly Prep, and transfer to a school with a more competitive basketball program. This was at the end of Graham's sophomore year in high school.

"I listened to him. I trusted this person. I believed he had my best interests in mind," Graham said.

The man, Ernie Lorch, then encountered legal difficulties. Contact between Graham and Lorch ended, but Graham remained committed to transferring. His mother and grandmother objected. "Change schools because he couldn't play basketball where he wanted?" said Sandra Graham. She shook her head, still baffled by her grandson's desire at 17.

"I was stubborn," Graham said. "I got hard-headed to the point that I said 'If you're not going to let me do what I want to do, then I'm not going to school.'

"My grandmother, she got real frustrated with the way I was acting, and she told me to leave the house."

Graham did, with nowhere to go. For those 10 days, he said he drifted around New York until finally, "It kind of became my life's calling, just to help underprivileged youth."

After coming to UR, Graham remained so interested in ensuring that his younger brothers -- Tascein (16) and Maurice (10) -- didn't repeat his mistakes that he made periodic trips to Brooklyn. If Graham discovered trouble brewing with either of his brothers, "he raked them over the coals," said James Wright, a UR professor of Education and Graham's advisor.

Graham, 6-2 and 210 pounds, redshirted as a true freshman at UR. He has two seasons of football eligibility remaining and intends to use them at one of the universities that have offered him a place in graduate school.

Graham hopes to teach, become a principal, then work his way into school-district administration.

"Brooklyn, New York, it's a tough neighborhood and I've seen a lot of my friends fall by the wayside," Graham said. "Out of all my friends I grew up with, I was the only one who got to go to college.

"It just really wants to make me put that idea in kids' heads, that they can be leaders, they can help change their communities, no matter their backgrounds.

"Being a leader is what's inside of you, the decisions you make, not where you come from."
Contact John O'Connor at (804) 649-6233 or joconnor@timesdispatch.com.