Coach’s death stuns Slippery Rock women’s basketball community, including Plum grad
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When Krista Pietropola decided to transfer out of Youngstown State’s women’s basketball program after her freshman year in 2015, Bobby McGraw was quick to reach out to the Plum graduate.
Pietropola and McGraw first made a connection during Pietropola’s college recruiting process in what was McGraw’s final year as an assistant at Slippery Rock before becoming the program’s head coach for the 2014-15 season.
“I got a call from coach McGraw letting me know he was the head coach, and I remember how quickly he offered me a spot when he found out I was transferring,” said Pietropola, who ended up playing three years for The Rock before serving as a student assistant and then a graduate assistant with McGraw.
“He wasted no time. He said, ‘I want you to play for me. I want to be your coach.’ As soon as I went up there, I knew that this was the right place for me. He was a coach who made you feel welcome the second you had an interaction with him. You knew as soon as you met with him, this was a coach who put his players before himself each and every day, no what time of day or what was going on.”
McGraw’s dedication to Slippery Rock and the 10 years he served as a basketball coach is being remembered in the wake of his unexpected death Sunday.
Many are mourning his passing, including Pietropola, who was connected with McGraw for six of his eight years as women’s head coach.
A release issued by the university Monday did not reveal a cause of death. McGraw was 50.
“My reaction was complete shock,” Pietropola said. “Not a tear, but shock. I couldn’t believe it. I refused to believe it. I checked everything in the room where I was to figure out if this was a dream or not. That shock lasted a couple of hours before it settled in.”
Pain and heartbreak for Pietropola prevails. But also, she said, do the memories of her time spent with McGraw continuing to grow in a game she’s been a part of for nearly two decades.
Pietropola said she learned a great deal about the coaching side of the game from McGraw as a Slippery Rock assistant, first while finishing up her undergraduate studies in 2018-19 after her playing eligibility had ended and then for two additional years while she also pursued a master’s degree in business administration.
“Coaching next to him after playing for him was just an amazing experience,” said Pietropola, who played 84 games for Slippery Rock over three seasons and ended her career ranked 12th in program history in defensive rebounds (291), 13th in 3-pointers made (84), and 13th in 3-point field goal percentage.
“Coaching really wasn’t something I thought about at first, but during that first year as a student assistant, coach McGraw told me that he saw a coach in me, and he believed in my abilities. He saw the way I worked with the players and saw that I was meant to be a coach. He helped give me that confidence.”
Pietropola returned to the Pittsburgh area to join the girls coaching staff at Franklin Regional for the 2021-22 season under first-year coach Bernie Pucka.
Pietropola played for Pucka when the latter was Plum’s head coach.
“Two weeks ago, June 28, Slippery Rock had their team basketball camp where they host a shootout for a bunch of high school teams,” she said. “So, of course, I took my team up there. I was with coach McGraw that whole day. My players got the chance to meet him. It was pretty special.”
McGraw, a former member of the U.S. Marine Corps military police and a retired trooper with the Pennsylvania State Police, graduated from Mars High School in 1990 and played collegiate baseball at Butler County Community College and Clarion University before eventually earning his degree in criminal justice from Tiffin University.
McGraw remembered his WPIAL roots, and there always was a strong WPIAL presence on his teams during his Slippery Rock tenure.
This past season, seven players from WPIAL schools – Trinity twin sisters Emily and Kaylin Venick, Cornell’s Daeja Quick, Penn-Trafford’s Bella Long, New Castle’s Lindsay Frabotta, Eden Christian’s Haylee Fleishman and Butler’s Jordan Kauffman — were members of the SRU team.
As head coach, McGraw led The Rock to 77 victories, ranking him fourth on the all-time women’s basketball coaching wins list. He guided SRU to the PSAC playoffs in 2014-15 for the first time in nearly a decade in just his first season in charge of the program.
Slippery Rock had at least one player named to the All-PSAC team in all seven of the seasons McGraw coached, (SRU did not play in 2020-21 due to covid-19), including five players who were named first team All-PSAC and one player, Farrell native D’Asia Chambers, who was named the defensive player of the year in 2014-15.
“We are heartbroken to share the news of Bobby’s passing,” SRU president William J. Behre said in a release. “We want to send our sincerest condolences to his family and friends as well as all of our current and former student-athletes that are impacted by this loss.”
“Bobby was much more than just our women’s basketball coach,” director of athletics Roberta Page said. “He was one of the biggest fans of our student-athletes from all sports and made it a point to attend so many different games and events to support all of our student-athletes. We will dearly miss having him on campus.”