Inducted in 2025
Volunteer Coordinator, Prep Basketball Program (1990-2023)
Officer-at-Large, Prep Mothers’ Club (1994-1998)
Administrative Staff, NYPD
Clothing Designer & Seamstress
Mother of Prep Graduate

When you show up to every one of your son’s games, season after season, throughout his high school career, you have proven yourself to be an incredibly supportive parent. Without a doubt, Harriet Griffin was always and remains just that: as supportive a mom as they come, encouraging her son, Sheldon, in all his endeavors — on the court and off — to this very day.

Now, when you continue to attend Prep games on the hardwood even for a season or so after your son’s graduation, surely, you are a Maroon fan of the highest order: a status that few Prep parents maintain after their sons’ Prep days are done. As early as the mid-’90s, while Sheldon was still in college, Harriet Griffin was already unmatched in her loyalty to Rams roundball, already a beloved courtside fixture in the Higgins Gymnasium.

But when you are on hand for every game for nearly three decades (and not just home games, either!), well, then you become something more. You become a legend.

And without a doubt, Harriet Griffin is a Fordham Prep legend.

It is with gratitude and the profoundest respect that generations of Prep players, coaches, and the whole Fordham Prep community welcome Harriet J. Griffin into the Prep Hall of Honor, a “Woman for Others” in every sense of the phrase, rightfully to be recognized among her fellow Rose Hill legends for her sacrifice, loyalty, and unwavering sense of school spirit.

Harriet Jacquelyn Griffin was born in Virginia Beach, Virginia in 1948. Her father, Charles Henry Griffin, was a sanitation man, and her mother, Esther Reid, was a school bus driver. She grew up the third of four sisters — Gladys and Alice were older; Sylvia, the youngest — in Blackwater, a small, yet beautiful Mathews County maritime community just north of Virginia Beach.

She attended Seaboard Elementary School and Union Kempville High School, graduating in 1968. Even as a teenager, Harriet was known to her family, friends, and the members of her church as a kindhearted and industrious young woman — thoughtful, dependable, and mature for her age — whose quick and clever hands could make just about anything with a needle, thread, and a bit of fabric. And so it surprised no one when Harriet enrolled at Norfolk State University where she would earn her associate’s degree in clothing and textile design.

By the mid-1970s, Mrs. Griffin had relocated to New York City, following in the footsteps of her older sister, who had made the move north a few years before. There Harriet would embark on her next great endeavor: raising her son, Sheldon, future member of the Prep Class of 1994. Harriet placed her trust in God and relied on her own talent and willingness to work hard as she raised Sheldon. It would be that very faith and resourcefulness that would see her and Sheldon through.

In the decades that followed, Griffin would hold various administrative positions with the NYPD, serving as a 911 operator and a clerk in the Warrant and Medical Divisions. Along the way, she would also take jobs as a teller with Chase Bank and a seamstress at Oak Hill Sportswear down in the Garment District in Manhattan. But the long hours aside, the keen-eyed and nimble-fingered Harriet always seemed to be able to find the time to crochet clothes to donate for the newborns at St. John’s Riverside Hospital in Yonkers, or to design and sew just one more outfit for a friend or neighbor — elaborately embroidered wedding dresses included.

By the time Sheldon was ready to choose a high school, Fordham Prep seemed a natural fit for the bright young man. Mom agreed. And so, in September 1990, Harriet’s son arrived from West 225th Street in the Marble Hill section of the borough. Among his many Shea Hall accomplishments in the classroom and beyond, Sheldon’s great love of basketball would lead him to leave his mark on Prep athletics down in the Higgins Gymnasium. But Sheldon would be the first to admit that his own contributions to Maroon athletics would hardly compare to Mom’s with her decades-long commitment to Ram roundball.

From the very first game of that first season back in 1990, Harriet Griffin would be the enduring face of the team. At first, she would be on hand to cheer on her son and his teammates, but soon enough, she would take on an even greater role in the world of Prep hoops. In the words of Mr. Kevin Piggott, longtime Prep teacher, coach, and CHSAA president at the time of Griffin’s Hall of Honor induction:

“Besides being the Rams’ greatest supporter, Harriet also worked the door. Fans — both of Fordham and their opponents — were always greeted by her warm smile and generosity. Her enthusiasm was contagious. Even referees became her friends. In fact, she treated everyone with fairness and built relationships throughout the league.

Harriet — who would also dedicate her time to other CHSAA basketball, baseball, and soccer games along the way — was a rare and precious presence at the Prep and throughout the league.

She gave her love to the entire community, and in gratitude, received their love in return. Yes, she cared deeply for the game of basketball and all its participants — but more importantly, she cared for all the people involved: the players, the coaches, the officials, and the fans alike. There was, and still is, no one like her in the CHSAA. She was and remains a true role model.”

And in the words of Sean Gregory ’94, senior correspondent for Time magazine, Sheldon’s Prep classmate and one-time Ram teammate:

“Hands, Fordham!” For thirty-four seasons, the voice of Harriet Griffin, imploring Fordham Prep basketball players to put their hands up on defense would serve as the soundtrack of the Donnie Walsh Court. Walking down the stairs of Shea Hall, you knew a game was going on if you could hear Harriet, in her unmistakable Southern twang, cheering on her players — whom she affectionately called “her babies” — or telling a referee, in very direct but non-confrontational terms, that an opposing player had traveled: “Walk!”

As if her courtside devotion were not enough, Harriet would also give her time and talent to the work of the Fordham Prep Mothers’ Club, even serving as an officer-at-large in the years following her son’s Shea Hall graduation: a Maroon Mom through and through.

Nearly thirty years after her son’s Prep graduation, Harriet gave up her seat at the entrance of the Higgins Gymnasium to enjoy her well-earned retirement in Chesapeake, Virginia. She would leave generations of Prep basketball families in her wake, all of whom would carry with them enduring memories of the woman who would embody the spirit of the Prep year after year after year. Though states away, she still keeps tabs on her beloved Rams.

To quote Brian Downey ’95, former Prep baller himself and current head coach, “Sheldon was Harriet’s only child, but for more than 30 years, she took up the rest of us as her own.”

For all this and more, Harriet J. Griffin’s name now rightly joins those enshrined in the Prep Hall of Honor: a Fordham Prep legend — without a doubt.