Background
Carie Graves grew up in Wyoming Township near Spring Green, Wisconsin, and she attended River Valley High School.
Carie Graves grew up in Wyoming Township near Spring Green, Wisconsin, and she attended River Valley High School.
Her first experience with rowing was as a walk-on when she was a freshman at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 1971. Her freshmen team went to the women"s national championships. She then made the 1976 Olympic team in the eight, adding an Olympic bronze.
Graves later became the Radcliffe Crew coach served as head coach at the University of Texas at Austin from 1998 through 2014.
Graves was born in Madison, Wisconsin to parents Robert and Dyrele (Derry) Graves. The parents of Robert Graves moved to the Spring Green area in the 1930s from South Dakota so that Ben Graves (Robert"s father) could take up a position as the land and farm manager at Taliesin.
Robert Graves himself rowed at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. Derry Graves, who came from a circus family in Baraboo, Wisconsin, trained as a registered nurse
In the late 1960s, she worked as a nurse at the Badger Army Ammunition Plant, while Robert farmed.
In 1981 she had the six-oar for the women's eight that finished second at the World Championships in Munich, but her big moment that year came at the Henley Royal Regatta when she was a member of the winning fours with crew in the first year that women were admitted to the Henley.