Even a year-and-a-half later, William Graham remembers the moment of his epiphany to the very day, and if you know William Graham, his tremendous power of recall is no surprise.
“November 3, 2017,” William answers quickly.
The question? When did the young man who is now a junior at San Marino High School decide he wanted to create a mascot for the Titans.
“I was hanging with some friends at our football game at South Pasadena and it was either the second quarter or at halftime and I saw a Tiger mascot coming across the field with a group of cheerleaders,” said William. “I thought, ‘wow, if that’s a boy in there, he is really getting their attention!’”
He was, and now William is, too.
Then a sophomore, Graham went to Principal Dr. Issaic Gates to further explore his idea.
“Dr. Gates said, ‘well, we have basketball too. Why don’t you do those games?’” Graham said. William knocked on Gates’s door again in August 2018, at the beginning of his junior year, to revisit the matter. William was put in touch with Assistant Principal Jorge Muñoz, who gave him a to-do list.
“William has definitely followed the rubric,” Muñoz said.
Soon, William was roaming the sidelines—and end zone, and running track—adorned in a Titan costume acting out the role of his dreams at Titan football games. When winter arrived, he moved indoors to spread his influence at basketball games and he has even made a few appearances at McNamee Field for Titan baseball contests.
His mascot character is called, simply “Titan” for the time being, but William said he is working on a better name for the 2019-20 school year. It was only a matter of days after he first made his appearance last fall before William had created his own persona and he has even crafted small dance numbers—playlets, if you will—that have quickly become fan favorites.
In “The Butterfly,” William emerges from a deep crouch, his own personal cocoon, before spreading his wings and fluttering away. He also performs “The Flower,” which he says is a reference to Jesus. A larger menu will most certainly follow.
“I come up with my own dance moves,” William told The Tribune. “They are simple stories, but they get their point across.”
He says he enjoys the new-found notoriety of being the school mascot and is already planning for next year.
“One thing that William innately understands is that he wants to be engaged more wit people, so he has consciously put himself in a position to engage more with people,” said William’s father, Jeff Graham, who seems to enjoy his son’s role as much as the rest of the community.
William says he enjoys the environment at football games more than other sports because he has “more room to do my moves.”
“I like it when the band plays and in basketball, you have to wait for the breaks. I also like to run into the end zone to high-five the football players after a touchdown.”
William is also a member of the wrestling team, a pursuit he started during his sophomore year.
“I wanted to be in a co-ed sport and wrestling offered a good opportunity,” William said. He picked up two wins during his first season—“I almost got another one at Hoover,” he interjected—and this past season collected another victory at the Rio Hondo League finals with his grandparents in attendance, a fact that elicited an expression of pride. The sport has some positive side benefits.
“I have gotten really fit and lost 25 pounds,” he beamed.
The son of Rosemary and the aforementioned Jeff Graham, William has a sister, Ella, who is a sophomore at SMHS. He recently visited Azusa Pacific and hopes to one day enter the medical field.
“I think it would be nice to help cure people,” William said.
Anyone who has ever crossed William’s path knows that he already is…
