Philip McGraw’s Biography

Phil McGraw was born on September 1, 1950 in Vinita, Oklahoma. His father Joe had several jobs such as football coach and pilot-carrying equipment to oil-field workers. He returned to school to study psychology at 40 after a hard and confusing life. Philip’s mother’s name was Jerry. She would stay at home to raise Philip and his three other sisters. During that time the family survived on the money Philip and his father earned from a newspaper route. They use to get up at 3:30a.m and fold the papers.
He earned a football scholarship in the University of Tulsa but left because of a bad injury his sophomore year. He then decided to leave college and move to Wichita Falls, Texas with his parents and his three sisters. I     n Wichita he became a salesman of health club memberships and he became so good at it, that in six months he owned half of the club. He started to consider studying law or medicine but at the end he decided to follow his father’s footsteps and study psychology. He earned his degree from Midwestern State University in 1975. He got his PhD from the University of North Texas. After a hard struggle of choosing his career path, he met Oprah Winfrey in her show and in the year September 2002 he launched his own show. In its first four days, the Dr. Phil show received the highest rating of any talk show. He has published numerous scholarly articles and has testified before congress as an expert of human function. He received an honorary doctorate of humanities. . Since that day, McGraw’s mission is to help others. But proudly Dr. Phil is not just a psychologist. He is currently also a baseball coach, a golfer, scuba diver, and tennis player. Like Dr. Phil followed his father’s footsteps, now his son Jay McGraw is doing the same.