Sunday, as I was leaving church, a young man stopped me and asked if I remembered Don Griffin. I couldn’t remember anyone with that name.

“You’re Harold Keller!” he said, and then showed me an article I wrote in this newspaper over 20 years ago about his father-in-law, Don Griffin.

As we approach the high school football season, allow me to share portions of that article:

Last Friday, the Riverside football team, under the supervision of Coach Mickey Roussel, held their second annual retreat. I had the privilege of assisting Coach Roussel again this year in planning the day’s activities.

This year, we met on Jimmy Hymel’s property in Convent on Highway 3125. The setting was beautiful and the retreat was refreshing, to say the least.

The subjects were courage, commitment, the heart of man and humility.

I called Gus Kinchens, who played on the 1958 LSU national championship team. He was unable to come, but gave me the name of Don Griffin. I usually don’t like to get a speaker I know nothing about, but felt impressed to invite Don. I found out that Don was a high school all-American at Broadmoor High School in Baton Rouge. He had numerous offers to play college football and finally settled on LSU, staying there three years. He then transferred to Southeastern, where he was captain of the football team and was voted the conference’s most valuable player.

During his talk, he wanted to know who the quarterbacks were. Three young men raised their hands. “How far can you throw a football?” he asked. All said they could throw it about 50 yards. He then took a deflated football from his bag, pitched it at one of the quarterbacks and said, “Let’s see you throw it 50 yards.” The sight of the flat football surprised the young man. “I can’t throw it 50 yards without air!” he said.

Don smiled and said, “The empty football is useless without air. Much like a person’s life without Jesus – empty.”

I enjoyed reprinting a portion of this article as much as I did when I wrote it years ago.

Over the years, I’ve used the illustration Don used with the football many times.

If you have any questions or comments, please write Harold Keller at Get High on Life, P.O. Drawer U, Reserve, LA 70084, call 985-542-8477 or email hkeller@comcast.net.