Centennial Moments: Olympian Jeff Grayer

In honor of 100 years of Iowa State men's basketball during the 2007-08 season, cyclones.com will publish weekly "Centennial Moments," featuring brief stories on former Cyclone players, coaches and teams. Check back at cyclones.com for more "Centennial Moments." Be sure to click here to see this week's video vignettes.

Jeff Grayer Makes Olympic Team

Jeff Grayer had one of the greatest years of his life in 1988. He ended his eligibility as Iowa State's all-time leading scorer and led the Big Eight in scoring at 25.3 ppg. The awards and honors soon followed. Grayer was named first-team all-Big Eight for the third consecutive season and earned third-team All-America honors by the Associated Press. The Flint, Mich., native was then selected as the 13th pick in the 1988 NBA Draft by the Milwaukee Bucks.

Despite all of his incredible achievements, Grayer wasn't done yet. He capped off his incredible Cyclone career by becoming ISU's first United States Olympian, surviving the final cuts of the 1988 United States Olympic Men's Basketball Team and representing his country at the Seoul Olympics.

When U.S. Olympic coach John Thompson cut Brian Shaw and trimmed the roster to 12 players, Grayer could finally celebrate.

“I've always dreamed of making the Olympic team,” Grayer said. “It's one of my biggest accomplishments.”

Thompson, who was the head coach at national power Georgetown at the time, was impressed with Grayer's versatility.

“Jeff is the type of player who can create a lot of action,” Thompson said. “He can post up or go outside on you.”

Grayer and his teammates, which included two other Big Eight legends Danny Manning of Kansas and Mitch Richmond of Kansas State, had their Olympic dreams thwarted by an 82-76 loss to the Soviet Union, a squad led by future NBA All-Stars Sarunas Marciulionis and Arvydas Sabonis.

“The only thing I can remember was feeling real depressed,” Grayer said. “We just kept trying to tell each other we gave it a great effort.”

The Americans came back with a win over Australia in the consolation round to claim the Bronze Medal. Grayer had his best game against Brazil, where he took turns shutting down Brazil's superstar Oscar Schmidt. Grayer added eight points in the 102-87 win.

“Although we fell short of our goal,” Grayer said. “I really enjoyed the experience and we gave it our best shot.”