A story about a 1958 LSU Championship ring.

Seeing the photos with details of LSU's Championship Rings, reminded me of the following story, written by the late Greg Guirard, who died three years ago at the age of 80. A number of years earlier, he'd tried to sell his LSU ring on eBay, and offered this background about the ring and its provenance (it didn't sell, btw):

In 1958 and 1959 I was student manager of the LSU football team. Among my many duties and functions was the responsibility to see that every player was in the football dorm, Broussard Hall, at a certain time every night (probably 10 PM). I lived there myself. One night, shortly before the first game in 1958, I became suspicious and did a second bedcheck. Eighteen guys had sneaked out. The next day I turned them in to Coach Dietzel. Some of them wanted to beat me up, of course. We had a small meeting and I explained that I, like them, had an athletic scholarship at LSU. Only if I did my job, and only if they did their jobs, could we retain our scholarships. I wasn't willing to give up my scholarship and do a bad job. I told them that we could not possibly win football games if they spent their nights drinking and chasing women. They came to understand that I was not going to look the other way when they chose to fail their team and their scholarships. Not once in the next two seasons did any player leave the dorm after curfew, and we became national champions. Coach Dietzel felt that I deserved a national championship ring as much as anyone else did. It's a beautiful ring shaped like LSU Stadium, with a diamond as the field. I feel a little like a traitor for wanting to sell the ring, but I've never worn it...I never got a high school or college ring; my family couldn't afford it, and I've never worn rings... I figure that some really serious LSU football fan would value the ring even more than I do. I can hang on to the memories and let someone else own the ring. I don't know how many of these rings are in existence...probably about 60. My connection with the Athletic Department at LSU began in 1957 when I was employed to tutor football players in English, biology, chemistry and math. My grandfather, Wade O. Martin SR, played on LSU football teams in 1904-06. Then he taught chemistry and agriculture at Southwestern. He also coached football there. A little later he was elected sheriff in St.Martin Parish and as such was the youngest sheriff in the U.S., at 23. Now you know "the rest of the story." Greg