Stein-O-Mite! The Story of Robert Stein

"No one has ever become poor by giving." ~ Anne Frank

Happy Tuesday Just Win Today Family. I hope everybody got a chance to read yesterday's story about Julian Beard. If you didn't get to read that, check it out.

Today's story is about a dear friend of mine, Coach Robert Stein, head girls basketball coach at Woodland High School. I've known Robert since we went to college together at Southeast Missouri State University. He's one of the most honest, loyal, decent human beings I've ever met in my life.

The story Robert tells today is very personal, and it represents the best of what JWT is all about. It is the best example of a random person taking the time to notice you and make your day better.

I'll take a step back, and let Robert take it from here:

In February of 1999 I was an assistant Coach at Scott City under Derrick McCord. My father died unexpectedly of a massive heart attack. It was brutal. I was in a bad place and was struggling just to survive each day. After the funeral I had to get away so I went to our next game. As I remember, it was against Hayti, a prelim game at Three Rivers Community College.

We won the game, and afterwards I was sitting in the bleachers when a referee from the game, Mr. Al McFerrin came up and sat down beside me. He asked me if everything was okay, because Mr. McFerrin had never seen me get to a game so late (I got there only 5 minutes before buzzer). I told him what was going on.

Mr. McFerrin told me a story about when he lost his dad, and said, "The pain never goes away, it just gets easier not to focus on it everyday." It might not sound like much, but it was and still is some of the best advice I have ever received. It helped me through one of the darkest, toughest, most painful times of my life."

Al McFerrin is a longtime basketball referee and is currently the superintendent at Scott County Central R-5 School District (MO). Al was actually the National High School Basketball Referee of the Year in 2001, and is the brother of Lennies McFerren, a Hall of Fame basketball coach in Missouri who I talked about in another article on Just Win Today.

You had two people, Robert and Al, one having a terrible day, and the other taking the time to ask what was wrong. What resulted was Al giving some comfort to Robert during one of the most difficult times of his life. These two people didn't know each other well. They weren't best friends.

Al just took the time to be nice. This is a great example of how easy it can be to make somebody else feel better if you just take the time. It's something anybody can do.

What a great story. I appreciate Coach Robert Stein taking the time to share it. I hope you enjoyed reading it. Try to help somebody else today. #JWT #JoinTheRevolution