Silas Graham’s path to St. Joe’s basketball comes with a familiar coaching connection

Silas Graham’s first basketball memory came from the inside of a penalty box.

His father, Nat Graham, was an assistant coach for Boston College at the time. Along with hosting basketball games, the Eagles’ Conte Forum doubles up as a hockey arena. When the hardwood is placed over the rink, the penalty box remained, and it was the perfect place to put a rambunctious toddler.

It was easier to keep Silas contained when he couldn’t walk, Nat remembers. Silas would crawl by his father’s feet while Nat ran drills as an assistant at Cornell — one of his first coaching stops. With Nat on the staff, the Big Red made March Madness appearances in 2008, 2009, and 2010. In diapers, Silas attended all three tournaments.

“It was such a part of his life at that stage,” Nat said. “He idolized the guys. By the time he was walking and talking, I can remember him playing in the living room and pretending to be the guys on the team.”

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After a four-year stint at Boston College, Nat coached at Penn as an assistant from 2014 to 2025. Coaching alongside his father at Cornell, Boston College, and Penn was Steve Donahue. Silas and Donahue, now the head coach at St. Joseph’s, developed a strong relationship, and it continued once Silas picked up basketball.

Last year, Silas — now a 6-foot-4 senior guard at the Haverford School — received scholarship offers from Notre Dame and Stanford. However, he gravitated toward Hawk Hill because of his familiarity with the program’s head coach. He announced his verbal pledge to St. Joe’s on Aug 4.

“I don’t need to build a relationship with Coach Donahue,” Silas said. “He can coach me, and I’m going to understand that it’s not the same relationship that it was before, and that he’s going be tougher for me, and I have to be prepared for that.”

Silas enters his senior year as the Fords’ all-time leading scorer. Last season, he averaged 20.7 points, 9.1 rebounds, and 3.1 assists. 247Sports’second best players in Pennsylvania, with Archbishop Wood’s Jaydn Jenkins first in the class of 2027.

“I never take it for granted how coachable he is and what a joy [Silas] is to coach,” said Fords coach Bernie Rogers. “Forget all the points and the wins. He’s enjoyable to coach every day and we don’t take that for granted.”

Sitting in the Haverford School bleachers following a team workout, Silas wore a pair of red Cornell basketball shorts. After being dismissed by Penn following the 2024-25 season, Nat returned to Ithaca to serve as an assistant last season.

But just like Donahue, Nat found himself back in the Big 5. This summer, Nat was hired by Drexel to coach on Zach Spiker’s staff. In the near future, Nat will likely see his son on the opposing sidelines of a Big 5 matchup. In the meantime, he has enjoyed coaching Silas during summer runs at Drexel’s Daskalakis Athletic Center.

“We would play with some Haverford kids,” Silas said. “My dad [has] never really been a coach on one of my teams, so it was kind of cool to see that. Obviously he likes to give me pointers about myself, but even him just telling other guys what to do and seeing how he operates basketball-wise is nice.”

As a child, Silas rarely responded well to his father’s postgame pointers — and Nat offered plenty.

“I have a friend who’s a trained musician,” Nat said. “He says when he goes to concerts or he goes to a small bar with live music, it’s hard for him to enjoy it because he’s always looking at it critically, and I think the same is true for coaches.

“I can’t turn the coach off. There’s things I see that no one else here sees, and I can’t not tell you. But that process was very difficult. I think in the long run, it may have been beneficial, but it’s not easy as a kid.”

Eventually, Nat broke through. Silas no longer brushes off his father’s criticism and welcomes the additional coaching. Last season, Nat attended two Haverford games while living in Ithaca. Silas is looking forward to having him back in the bleachers during his final high school season.

With the recruiting process behind him, Silas is exploring who he is outside of basketball. Nat has long given Silas and his two other children the support to so.

“As much as I love basketball and I can be on them about basketball stuff, I want them to be well-rounded, thoughtful [people],” Nat said. “More developed overall humans than sometimes can happen with sports people.”

Silas has watched his father develop himself outside of basketball.

Off the court, Nat is a committed racial justice advocate. He has written about several racial justice topics including white allyship and police brutality. In 2021, as a member of Penn’s staff, Nat sat during the national anthem to bring attention to institutional racism. Silas is taking an African American studies class, where he noted he is one of two white students.

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“It’s cool to see another part of history,” Silas said. “Haverford, we say we’re like ‘woke’ and diverse, we don’t really like to go super deep into all that stuff. We kind of stay surface level, so this is the one class gets intense and emotional, but I think I like it. I think it’ll be interesting for me.”

One area of importance for Silas is wanting to help Philadelphia’s homeless population. This, too, is because of Nat. Growing up, Silas would regularly drive through West Philadelphia with his father to Penn’s campus. From his booster seat, Silas saw how homelessness affected the area.

“That’s actually another big thing for my dad,” Silas said. “People don’t understand why people are homeless and they blame it all on them. There’s so many other factors that go into that, but like that’s something I took an interest in.”

Silas is looking forward to his future at Hawk Hill, where he expects to play early. He’s also proud to stay in Philadelphia.

“I love the Big 5,” Silas said. “I grew up around it, and I love like the history behind it. So many Philly guys leave now. Even in high school, Philly guys leave now. So l I think it’s cool that I’m one of the guys that stays.”