Got this from a Red Helmet post on Facebook.
From Barry Fowler:
From a good friend of mine - worth the read.
At some point in time during the year of 1962, I put on a varsity Mayfield Cardinal football uniform. Little did I realize at the time how that was going to be a defining moment for the rest of my life.
You see, in a way I was a legacy. My dad, Floyd Griffin, had played for the Cardinals during the early thirties and went on to play for Centre College in Danville, Kentucky until he ruptured a kidney and he lost his scholarship which ended his football career. My uncle, Bill Griffin, had played for the Cardinals a few years later and went on to play for Bear Bryant at the University of Kentucky and then played with the Los Angles Rams and the Chicago Bears.
When I was just in the 4th grade at Westward grade school, I started my journey in football that would help shape my character and integrity for the rest of my life.
I lived for the day when I could put on the red and black and run out on to the field at war memorial stadium. As a freshman Cardinal, I had the privilege and honor to play for a man named Jack Morris. We went undefeated my freshman year and little did I know that I was becoming part of a legend that would stay with me for the rest of my life.
I started for the varsity my sophomore year and back then we played both offense and defense for the entire game. I played split end (now called wide receiver) on offense and corner back on defense. Just a Side note here, corner back is a brutal and punishing defensive position to play. I hated playing Murray back then because Ty Holland ran the single wing offense and every play was usually student body right and student body left which meant you had two pulling guards, two blocking backs and the runner coming around end right at you. It was a suicide position.
In those days we played everybody that had a team in Western Kentucky and when we ran out of teams in that area to play, we played Tennessee teams and yes, even the powerhouse Louisville teams like Male, Wagoner, Desalles and others.
Football in Mayfield was never just a game, it was and is, a way of life. In 1964 I played my last game on the grass of War Memorial stadium. If I am not mistaken, my senior year we started a string of winning seasons that has never been broken and continues to this very day through the year of 2016. Folks that is 52 straight years of never having a losing season and I have lost track of how many state championships are mixed in there. Not bad for a little sleepy Western Kentucky town.
I am now 69 years old and I still can remember games that I played in and even certain plays that I was involved in over a half a century ago. I can still hear the voices of Coach Mac, Don Sparks, Virgil Raines and Jack Morris during practice and had no idea at the time that I was living in the real world legend of Mayfield Football.
This past October, I came back to Mayfield to be with my sister for a few days who has been very ill and my brother Scott and I went to see Mayfield play a game. Mayfield won the game by about 40 points but when I walked back into that stadium, I was 16 years old again. It was like I had never left and I was standing on the side lines waiting to take the field. Once a Cardinal, always a Cardinal.
So here is my message to the current Mayfield High School football team and all the kids who will play on that field in the future or wear a band uniform, a cheerleader or majorette uniform: You are a part of history. The honor and privilege of being a part of that team will remain with you for the rest of your life. They say there is nothing forgotten more quickly than a high school football hero and that might be true but what you will take with you when you walk off that field for the last time is priceless and will live within you until you take your last breath. The past, present and future will always be with you and you will never forget that you were a part of something very special, you were a Cardinal.
Mike Griffin. MHS Class of 1965