Finding Inspiration in Everyday Heroes: A Conversation with Jim Stovall

SPEAKER 02 : 0:00

Welcome to The Good News with Angie Austin. Now, with The Good News, here’s Angie.

SPEAKER 05 : 0:09

Hello there, friend. Angie Austin and Jim Stovall with The Good News. We are talking about his winner’s wisdom column titled Coach for Life. You’ve been in contact with many coaches over your, you know, being a football player and then being an Olympic weightlifter. You know, like coaching is something you’re very familiar with, I would think.

SPEAKER 01 : 0:28

Yeah, coaches have played a big part in my life, and most of the people listening to us, in one way or another, coaches have made a big difference in your life. And, you know, through this project, Coach for Life is my new book, and I want to encourage people, you know, reach out to those coaches that I don’t care if they coached you in grade school or they… They were a scout leader or a cheer sponsor or whatever they did. You have those people that were in the right place at the right time to make a huge difference in your life. Last year, I had a very busy year writing. I had planned to write two books, and I ended up writing six. I thought I was done after four or five, and then… one of the coaches that had helped me on the Olympic team passed away, and I thought a lot about him. And so I thought, you know, I need to kind of do my own kind of a thing. So I wrote a novel about a coach and a guy that lived in this little town for 50 years, and he coached football, basketball, and baseball at this little high school for 50 years, and then he dies. And the story’s all about… His memorial service, the only place they could hold it was the football stadium. And thousands of people come back.

SPEAKER 05 : 1:43

Oh, my goodness.

SPEAKER 01 : 1:44

For this thing. And, you know, and, you know, and, you know, of course, it’s fiction. I made it up. But, I mean, here’s all these people, you know, the governor and, you know, a billionaire and a movie star and all these people that this one little guy impacted in 50 years of coaching, you know. And I think it’s amazing how we all have those people. that really made a difference for us. And, you know, when you’re coaching sports or other activities, it’s not about the activities. You know, most people aren’t going to play football or basketball or baseball beyond, you know, high school or maybe college. But it’s about the lessons you learn and the things that make a difference. And, you know, sports is an amazing microcosm of – of life here on earth. Cause, uh, you know, there are boundaries, there’s time and, you know, you can watch what happens. And, uh, so it’s, it’s a great thing. So I, I wrote a novel, I wrote a story about it and it’s, uh, came out just this week and it’s, it’s already been optioned for a movie. So I’m really excited about the, the, the, the prospects of this deal. And, um, so it’s a lot of fun.

SPEAKER 05 : 2:58

You know, I, um, uh, I haven’t had as many coaches as you’ve had, but my kids had plenty of coaches, and so I came into contact with a lot of them. Of the really great coaches you had, what is it that made them great?

SPEAKER 01 : 3:15

The Olympic coach I had that passed away, when I started, he believed much more in my ability than I did, and he pushed me harder and than I thought I could. And when you lift large amounts of weight, you kind of get psyched out by the numbers. I mean, you can lift, you know, 495, 498, 499, but you can’t lift 500. It just is this number out there. And, I mean, I remember I was stuck on that for it seemed like months. And we come in for the workout, and they have these guys that load the bar for you or else you’d get worn out loading the bar instead of lifting the weight. But he said, okay, let’s get one more at 495, and we’ll call it a day. So I lifted, I popped it up there and dropped it and put it back on the ground. And he came over and put his arm around me. He said, son, I have never lied to you once. until right now and he said you were stuck there i told you 495 you just lifted 502 get a shower and that was our whole conversation about it but and he said i promise i’ll never lie to you again but um you know it was just an amazing experience we had and uh you know and i remember the last time we were together was for a championship and i remember uh him talking to me he said uh He said, you’re going to get to go do something in a few minutes that very few people ever get to do and see if you’re the very best there is that does whatever. It doesn’t matter if it’s weightlifting or ping pong or making angel food cakes. It doesn’t matter. Very few people get to try to be the best at anything, and you’re going to get to do that in a minute. And you may win or you may lose because it’s not your job. to be the best at your job to maximize the potential you’ve been given. But he said, what you can’t do is go out there and do anything less than your best. And what we’re going to find out here in a few minutes is if your best is good enough. And that’s what we know. And then if it is, you get a gold medal. And if it’s, if it’s not, um, you know, you’ll just know that, uh, somebody was given a little more talent than you were given. And that’s how he left it with me. And, uh, I’m sitting here in my office, and across the room there’s a shelf. I know on the third shelf from the top, there’s a gold medal there that I got that day. And that is a… And then when we parted company, you know, he told me, he knew I was going blind, and he said, I don’t know anything about that, kid. He said, I wish I could help you with that. I wish I could tell you what to do, but I’d be lying. He said, I don’t know anything about it, but here’s what I know. A guy that can do what you just did can go do anything. He said, there’s nothing you’re going to ever have to deal with that’s going to be tougher than what you’ve already done. So just, you know, just know that. If you can do that, you can do anything. And I stole his line and gave it to Brian Dennehy in one of my movies when this kid had to build this fence and do all this hard work. And when he dropped him off, I said, don’t ever forget, a man that can build a good fence can do anything. And I just totally ripped it off, you know. But anyway, but that’s where this book came from. And it’s these vignettes of different people come back to share, you know, how this coach impacted them and everything. what he did, and then there are flashbacks to when they were young. And so far, everybody seems to be enjoying the story and the novel. And then there’s this new technology out called XR. It’s like a green screen on steroids. And because this story takes place mostly in this one location… with some flashbacks, it is a prime candidate for making a movie on that technology. And the people who own that have already contacted me. So, you know, it’s amazing to see what they could do because this is what would be very expensive to shoot. You go shoot one time and then they make the rest of the movie on this soundstage platform.

SPEAKER 05 : 7:37

That’s crazy. I can’t even wrap my head around that. So, Coach for Life, you know, my mom already read it because she sent it to me a week or two ago. And you want people to understand that the impact that they can have on the lives of young people that can really impact them for a lifetime or even change the course of their lives and steer them in a different direction. Yeah, yeah. Are there any people you can think of that have come back to you? I mean, I’m sure there’s 20, but who said, you know, you’ve really taught me a lot or you changed my future or really had quite an impact on me when you said this or that?

SPEAKER 01 : 8:15

Yeah, down the hall there is a file cabinet that has at least two drawers of – things we’ve gotten over the years. And, uh, Whoa, I don’t even have a drawer.

SPEAKER 05 : 8:29

I don’t even have an envelope.

SPEAKER 01 : 8:31

Well, just, just, well, I’ve got 10 million books out there with my phone number or my email address and all of them. So it’s, uh, I’m, I’m, I’m not hard to find. And, uh, but no, people have been, you know, and I’m always, always grateful when, um, and, um, You know, I may have told you, forgive me, but I had a guy call me from Alaska and he left a message overnight on my service. And he said, I want to thank you for the kidney transplant. And I didn’t know that we’d done anything through my foundation for kidney transplants. And I checked and we hadn’t. So I called this guy and I said, you know, you may have me confused. He said, no, I don’t. He said, I was dying and I needed a transplant and I signed up for this exchange and my doctor told me we had a match. And he said I wouldn’t have lived more than a couple more days. And I got this transplant. So after I got better, I called the exchange and I told them I would like to talk to the family or something. He didn’t touch with the family of the person whose kidney I got. And they came back to me and said, well, you need to understand the person who gave you their kidney is alive. And they did it anonymous. They wanted to give it to a stranger. And their only response was, if you want to contact somebody, contact Jim Stovall because he wrote a book. The Ultimate Gift, and in that novel, one guy gives a kidney to another guy, and that’s what inspired this person to give a stranger in Alaska a kidney, and it’s why you’re alive. Oh, my gosh, that’s crazy. And this guy called me, and now, I always wanted to help you. I don’t tell that story very often, but I, you know, I always hasten to say, I sit here today talking with you, Angie, with, to the best of my knowledge, both of my kidneys are there. I don’t, I mean, I didn’t do that. I wrote a book, and people take it upon themselves to do these amazing, amazing things. Wow. You know, it’s like the young men’s service league. A single mom took her boys to see my movie, and they read the book, and they decided they were going to do a little service project. Every year they were in high school, a volunteer. And a couple other single moms and their kids joined, and here we are 15 years later. And there’s 168 chapters of the young men’s service leagues in 38 states, and they currently have 11,000 boys that are doing service. a community project. They call them ultimate gift projects. And I didn’t do one of those. I wrote a book about it, and I had the boys write an essay of who did you help and what did you learn. But, yeah, there are just, you know, you do the things you do, and you don’t know where they come out. You really don’t know what… what it is. You don’t know what it’s all about. And you don’t worry about it. I was talking to a colleague of mine the other day. She was actually on her way to the White House for a meeting, and I’ve had that privilege on a couple of occasions. And when you go to the White House, at least for me, because of the traffic in D.C. and all that, you don’t want to horse around. So you get there about an hour early, and you go to a bagel shop across the street, and you hang out until it’s time to walk across the street. Well, She did the same thing, but she said, when I walked out of the shop, there was a guy, a sign painter, up on this shaky ladder doing this. And she said, my dad was a sign painter when I was a kid, and he told me, never have a ladder like that unless somebody’s holding it. And it was starting to slip, and the guy was up there, way up there. He didn’t even know it. So she said, I had time. I stood there for six or eight minutes and held this guy’s ladder. And then as he was coming down, as he got to my level, I let go and I walked on down the sidewalk. And he never knew I was there. And she said, as I was walking into the White House, I realized, you know, what’s my life about? Why did God put me here on Earth? And she said, maybe it wasn’t to have this meeting at the White House. Maybe I was here in the right time and the right place to hold this ladder so this guy didn’t die. And he never knew she did it. And so, you know, you just do – it’s like Coach Wooden, one of my mentors, told me, every time you ask yourself, what would I do right now if I was amazing? And in every situation, every word, everything you say, it’s like you being an encourager or whatever. You have the opportunity to ask yourself, what would I do if I were amazing? And you can make a difference. You can always make a difference.

SPEAKER 05 : 12:58

You know, I actually – kind of, I love that you told me that many years ago. And so I remember that. And I, uh, have a, I got a plaque. It just came last week. It’s, um, today only happens once make it amazing, which I think is very similar, you know, to the similar vein to that. And that kind of helps me get the day started to like, well, this could really be a great one. Like you could make a difference today. And I love the idea that in the column you call on people to, um, express their gratitude towards the people, whether it be a coach or someone else, who has shared with you, inspired you, motivated you, and to let them know. And I’ve done that a couple of times when you’ve challenged me in the past. I’ve reached out to a producer that really mentored me when I was younger at NBC in LA. JimStoval.com. Thank you, friend. Thank you. Be well.

SPEAKER 03 : 13:52

Arc Thrift has the summer clothing and household items you need. With 5,000 new items on the floor every day in 35 locations across Colorado, Arc Thrift also needs your donations of houseware, small furniture, electronics, and kitchen items. Donate generously and check out their stores. They’re looking for small electronics like alarm clocks and radios and all types of home goods that could include lamps, side tables, blenders, food processors, and more. Clothing is always a need for families, and Arc Thrift knows how quickly kids grow out of their clothes every season. They have clothing for all ages and times of the year. For any large furniture, you can schedule an online pickup with Arc Thrift. And as long as there’s a large furniture pickup, you can give them up to 20 boxes or bags for free. Go to arcthrift.com to schedule your large furniture pickup and to find the nearest location to you. That’s arcthrift.com.

SPEAKER 05 : 14:49

Platteville is listening to the mighty 670 KLT. Hey there, friend. Angie Austin here with the good news. Just wanted to talk to you a little bit about the benefits of volunteering. You know, whenever I talk to Jim or just talk to, as you know, he often we talk about the best way to get yourself out of your own. head or your own feelings or if you’re feeling low, is to volunteer. I’m going to start volunteering with AHRQ actually tomorrow, and I’ve done a lot of work with AHRQ, but I wanted to work more with the ambassadors who are differently abled. They have cognitive deficits. Some of them have cerebral palsy. Some of them have Down syndrome, and I’ve known the president and CEO for 20-some-odd years and probably close to 25. And my son has been doing an internship with him this summer. And so he works with the ambassadors as well. And he’s worked with ARC prior to his internship. You know, they have thrift stores and the money goes back to benefit the community and to help people with cognitive deficits. You know, whether they need a wheelchair or they have ARC University. Just a wonderful, you know, when Lloyd started there as the president and CEO, Lloyd Lewis, there were five ambassadors. And now they have five. over 500 differently abled ambassadors i mean that’s a huge employer of differently abled people and they’re always looking for donations i know they really uh need donations for our thrift.com you can go there and you can donate at any of the stores and if you had big items i believe that they pick those up as well uh 303-238-JANE 303-238-JANE if you want to find out more about donating but I was thinking about you know working with you know differently abled adults and you know what the benefits are I know there are a lot of benefits for me and so tomorrow we’re going to the zoo which you know that’s fun anyway but then I get to kind of chit chat and help, you know, organize and keep the ambassadors together in a group. But to be honest with you, I have friends, ambassador friends, so I get to chit-chat with them. But I was just kind of looking up in general volunteering and the rewards and volunteering with special needs adults fosters empathy, patience, and that’s something my daughter Hope always says I need more of. She should talk. Fosters empathy, patience, and communication skills. while promoting a more inclusive society. And I just think that volunteering in general leads to personal growth. It also, I think, gives you a better sense of self, a stronger sense of community. But I think it not only increases maybe their self-esteem, having a relationship and friendship with you, but your self-esteem in doing something to help others. And I’m excited, too, that on this particular Wednesday, because I’ll be doing this on Wednesdays, I’m excited that on this particular Wednesday, I’ll be able to work with my son, too. So that’ll be fun because I have several ambassadors that I’m friends with that now he’s become friends with. So I think that’s super cool. So arcthrift.com if you want to find out more about the work they do or if you want to volunteer as well. I’m basically going to do my volunteering on Wednesdays. And I’ve been looking for something to do for quite some time. And I’m like, Oh my goodness. Like the volunteering is right in front of my face. You know what I mean? Like, I mean, I’ve done so much work with arc over the years and arc university is such a cool thing. And I’ve helped out with their graduations where the differently abled adults, you know, learn all kinds of new skills and, whether it be how to navigate the mass transit system or how to maybe personal hygiene or boundaries, communication skills, like all kinds of different things that help them navigate the world and navigate the workplace. And so I’m just a big fan of all of the work they do. So again, they are looking for donations, arcthrift.com. Any of their stores will take your donations. They’ve opened a lot more. They’re going to be opening up some more in other states as well. And the things that they do, not just for the Differently Abled community, but our community as well, is so cool. So if you want to do volunteer work with them, you can work in the stores. You can work with the – with the ambassadors. There’s just so much you can do. And I just felt like in the winter months, especially like that’s not my favorite time in the winter months. I feel like I need a little something different to kind of give me a boost because I get seasonal affective disorder where I just, oh, I’m really lethargic and I don’t feel so great in the winter and dark months. And I thought, well, I might as well start my volunteering now to give me a boost so I can keep doing the volunteering through the winter months as well. So just an idea for you, but boy, you can look up like volunteering in my area and there’s a lot of Like quizzes you can take and they’ll actually recommend certain volunteer options for you. One of the ones that when I took that quiz, it said I should volunteer with animals, you know, with my animals, with like hospice patients or hospital patients. And I thought, boy, that’d be a lot of fun. But ARC for me, I just feel like I have an affinity for differently abled people or a gift. I don’t know. I just really enjoy my conversations and my friendships there. And I don’t know, the love that they emanate, it just makes me feel so warm and good. I mean, they’re so truthful. You know what I mean? They just tell you the truth. They genuinely care about you. They’re genuinely interested in you. And it just makes me feel good to be around the ambassadors. And I think they enjoy my friendship with them as well, the ambassador friends that I have. I hope that I get to see some of them tomorrow. I’m really excited about that. All right. Changing gears now, if you’re just joining us, this is Angie Austin with the good news. Hey, if you notice the parents and the kids in the stores doing their back to school shopping, you know, I just dropped my daughter off at college. She just I think I told you got a volleyball scholarship in Tennessee. And I was shocked because the elementary school kids were already heading into their first week of school and the stores were packed. And I noticed some prices on some of the items because I was getting some, you know, still some school items for my college kids. I noticed some of the prices had gone up. So how do you decide on the best item for the best price? Because the cheapest isn’t always the best, but you want to get a good deal. Well, here to help is TV host and award winning content creator, Tricia Hershberger.

SPEAKER 04 : 21:12

Hey, welcome back, Tricia. Thank you so much for having me, Andy. It’s always a great time to be here.

SPEAKER 05 : 21:17

Well, I always appreciate your expertise. So let’s talk about, you know, it’s overwhelming, these kids going back to school. I see all the stress in the aisles. I mean, it gets pretty hectic in those aisles where the kids are arguing about what they want and the parents what they want. And how can we make it easier?

SPEAKER 04 : 21:32

I think that in order to help make things a little easier for our kiddos and our parents going back to school this year, You can personalize kids’ gear with creations that they’ve made themselves. Now, this not only gets kids excited for the school year, but it’s fun and it helps to build their confidence too. And it helps parents save a little bit at the register too because you’re doing some DIY stuff. The Cricut Joy Extra lets you turn your child’s own artwork, like a hand-drawn dragon, let’s say, into one-of-a-kind designs on their backpack or their lunchbox. Now, whether you’re a first-time crafter or DIY expert, Cricut Design Space makes designing easy. From teacher gifts that have that extra special little touch, to customized backpacks and lunchboxes, to personalized shirts that kids can wear to school. It’s never been easier. to add that spark of creativity into every part of the new school year. So I love that because again, then you as the parent, you can buy like a basic t-shirt or a basic solid colored lunchbox or backpack and then add the fun to it yourself, saving a little on the price and really making it something special for the kiddos. So the cricket is the perfect way to go for that for sure.

SPEAKER 05 : 22:47

I think that this is such a cool phenomenon, the cricket, pardon me, because I don’t know if I told you last time I was thinking about getting one for my daughter to have in her dorm room because she’s got sports right now. They’re practicing six, seven hours a day. She can’t have a job, but she can certainly make things for her team. And there are so many teams where the moms are asked to make personalized things. blankets for trips or sweatshirts or shirts and i mean for a team mom or a kid on a team i mean she could really have a little side hustle creating all these personalized items because you kind of need your name if you have like 12 identical actually their team i think is 16 or 17 girls you need your name on these things or your number because you have to be able to tell whose is whose

SPEAKER 04 : 23:29

Absolutely. That’s such a great use case for it. I didn’t even think about for athletic teams, but 100%. And I do know people that have Cricket Joy Extra or other cricket machines and have even opened like their own online stores and side hustles as a result because they have so much fun with it that they keep creating. But yeah, for a sports team, that’s a perfect way to go.

SPEAKER 05 : 23:50

Well, that’s a great idea to do the side hustle on Etsy or whatever it’s called, too. That’s cool. All right. I love side hustle ideas in general because a lot of these kids don’t have time for a real job per se. So they’ve got to do it when they find the time. What about older kids, Tricia? Any ideas for older kids?

SPEAKER 04 : 24:08

yeah for your older students you know they’re always looking at kind of the bigger ticket tech items so perhaps new smartphone that’s specially designed for long reading sessions that’s also very affordable might fit the bill tcl’s new 60xe next paper 5g is tcl’s most premium phone yet yet still very affordable it’s got 256 gigabytes of internal storage up to 16 gigabytes of ram a nice long lasting battery and best of all They have this really cool and unique next paper display technology that can be optimized to look like ink on paper. Instead of a screen. And you can do like a color ink on paper mode, a black and white ink on paper mode, or just like a regular phone screen mode that’s still matte and a fingerprint free display. But it really is something to see if you haven’t seen it in person. And long study sessions will be so much more comfortable on the eyes, whether it’s day or night with this kind of display tech. And if you’re looking at that phone or you want to read some reviews, because I always recommend reading your reviews first so you can make sure it’s the right item for you or your student, you’ll be able to find that on Amazon or TCL.com.

SPEAKER 05 : 25:19

Wait, so tell me the name of the phone again because I want to Google it and check it out.

SPEAKER 04 : 25:23

Sure. So the phone is called the TCL60XE Next Paper, but Next Paper is spelled N-X-T Paper 5G. Okay.

SPEAKER 05 : 25:35

Okay. Okay, cool. All right. Any other ideas? And I also need to know where we go for more info because I know you usually have more info for us.

SPEAKER 04 : 25:43

Yes, I do. I have two more cool ideas for you. One that’s more with the kiddos in mind. This is a great award-winning STEM toy. So in order to spark creativity and imaginative thinking in our play, you could introduce your little one to Magnetic Building Fun with Cub Planet. This is the winner of the best STEM stem building toy by stem.org for 2025. So it really is kind of all the rage right now. And these are compact and beginner friendly building sets that include vibrant magnetic pieces that are easy to handle and ideal for small hands. now this is a proven fun way to keep our kiddos away from screens and it encourages early learning and exploration developing problem solving and sharpening motor skills and spatial awareness as well now even though this is a toy it is designed to be fun for all ages ages 3 through 99 is where it’s recommended but that’s a really fun one if you’re kind of transitioning your kiddo from summer vacation mode back into school mode Getting the play time that’s still educational is perfect. And then, again, for our older kids, maybe our college students or maybe our music students, I’ve got a really fun one. If kids are just beginning their journey into vinyl records because, you know, vinyl records are all the rage. They’re coming back. People want to buy and collect them. This could be the perfect turntable. Audio Technica’s AT-LP70XBT is an automatic wireless turntable. And what I mean by that is it combines the experience of warm analog vinyl record audio with the convenience of modern day Bluetooth technology. So they could listen to their records over Bluetooth enabled speakers, headphones, or even connect to a home stereo or other components. And I just think, you know, wouldn’t you be the coolest kid at college coming in with your own turntable?

SPEAKER 05 : 27:32

That is so cool, because my son actually just bought speakers and a turntable. And then he said to my husband, like, that’s it, right? And he’s like, no, you need this. And you should probably add the tuner. And my son was like, but what are all these things? But remember, back in the day, I don’t know if you’re old enough, but we had big stacks of all this stuff for the stereo, right? So how cool that he actually could use his vinyl records, because kids are buying those now, he’s 20, that he could use those, but not have to get all the stuff that used to go along with the stereo.

SPEAKER 04 : 28:00

That’s absolutely correct. And then if he’s got like Bluetooth headphones or something like that, he can listen to his vinyl audio through those headphones.

SPEAKER 05 : 28:08

That’s so cool. And they can find a lot of old stuff. They’re just, you know, they were actually really interested. Like a couple of years ago, he said, who is Prince? Was he good? I’m like, are you kidding me? Was he good? Like now he likes all these 80s and 90s bands that I used to listen to, like Morrissey and the Smiths. And I’m like, this is so cool to have your kid find out about all those old music and buy records. But he couldn’t play them until he bought this turntable. And now he’s like, I don’t want to buy all the extra stuff. So here’s the answer.

SPEAKER 04 : 28:35

This is the answer. Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER 05 : 28:38

Cool. All right, Tricia, we’ll go for more info.

SPEAKER 04 : 28:40

For more information on anything that we’ve chatted about today, you can always head to dailylounge.com.

SPEAKER 05 : 28:45

All right. Always fun to have you on. Thanks, Tricia.

SPEAKER 04 : 28:47

Thanks so much for having me, Angie. Have a great rest of your day.

SPEAKER 02 : 28:50

You bet. Bye-bye. Thank you for listening to The Good News with Angie Austin on AM670 KLTT.