Last fall, after multiple attempts in the playoffs, the Taylor Youth Ducks, a team of 10–12-year-olds, were crowned champions in the Tri-County Youth Football League Super Bowl Nov. 5.
To those familiar with their head coach, lifelong Taylorite Quincy Griffin, this team’s tenacity should come as no surprise.
As a kid, Griffin overcame a speech impediment and shyness through developing a passion for performing and writing hip-hop music.
“I might stutter when I talked, but when I rapped, it was just something that God gave me where I didn’t stutter,” Griffin recalled. “I didn’t miss a beat. And people were just so amazed.” Another difficulty Griffin overcame was when he unwittingly forfeited his high school amateur athletics career by winning $200 in a free-throw contest sponsored by the Taylor Daily Press during his sophomore year.
“I made the two free throws, and I ended my career at that free throw line,” Griffin said.
Nevertheless, Griffin bounced back from heartbreak by taking a part-time job after school for Taylor Independent School District’s maintenance department, which eventually led to more full-time work.
“It turned out to be a good thing for me though I probably would have rather played football,” Griffin said. “I took it, and I ran with it.”
By his senior year, Griffin had also discovered a passion for coaching through volunteering for the Police Activities League.
“We started a flag football league,” Griffin said. “I was a player coach, and we made it to the (flag football) Super Bowl that year.”
Building relationships over many years, and watching young people grow and develop their talents has fed this passion, Griffin said.
“Coaching is really a chance for me to give back what I had lost,” he said. “When I say that, it’s not so much me living through the kids, but more me helping the kids reach a goal that I had dreamed of attaining and helping them.”
In addition to three decades working and volunteering as a coach, Griffin has also worked with at-risk youth as a teacher, including as an instructor with the district’s In School Suspension program, as well as more than a decade as a Williamson County supervision officer with the county’s juvenile services.
Along the way, Griffin has lived by a saying he heard from his former boss and Taylor Middle School Principal Ester Allgower.
“She said, ‘Kids don’t care what you know until they know that you care,’” he recalled. “I kind of carried that with me as I grew as a young man.”
Another lifechanging challenge came July 14, 2017 when an 18-wheeler pulled out in front of him unexpectedly on a country road, causing a major accident.
“I remember laying in that truck when I had the accident, and I asked God to just bring me home to my family, bring me home to my wife,” he said. “I wanted to see my daughter grow up.”
Little did he know, Griffin would soon be adding a teenage foster daughter, Lakaysha, whom he and his wife would adopt in 2018, to his family.
“I didn’t know I was going to have (two) daughters,” Griffin said. “As they took me from the truck, I remember a peace coming over me. It was a peace I had never experiences in my life.”
Though Griffin’s arm injury required six surgeries, and he was unable to return to his job, he said it all was part of God’s plan, and the experience turned out to be exactly what he and everyone else in his family needed.
“When Lakaysha came in the house, it gave me a reason to keep going, to get up every day, because I knew I had to do my best for her,” he recalled. “It has been a blessing in disguise to be able to be able to be there for them.”
In fact, not only did the accident help his family, but it also prompted Griffin and his wife grow deeper in their faith, he said.
Recently, Griffin graduated from the T.D. Iglehart School of Ministry in San Antonio and is now a licensed minister with the Church of God and Christ.
“That has been the biggest blessing to be able to share Christ with people, when I can sit down and talk to people about Christ and give people my testimony of persevering through hard situations,” he said. “I am just looking forward now to what the future brings to Taylor and having more people to share with. Hopefully when it’s time for me to leave this place, people will know that I ran the race well, and I ran it for Christ.”
In addition to his community involvement, Griffin is also a co-host on the Taylor Press’ weekly local sports show Around the Watercooler. The show can be viewed on the Taylor Press Facebook page.
