LAPLACE, La. (WGNO) — St. Charles Catholic’s Wayne Stein is one of the busiest people in high school sports: being the Comets head football coach, head baseball coach and athletic director, and although the St. Charles alum is having championship-level success, Stein’s duties can occasionally overwhelm him.
“Very little,” Stein answered when asked how much sleep he gets.
“Sometimes it can get a little, not known where you’re coming from: Am I the AD today? Am I the head baseball coach today? Am I the football coach? I actually learned this from Nick Monica. I’ll try to set some parts of my day of where I’m just focusing on baseball for these two hours; or I’m just focusing on football for these two hours or I’m focusing on the athletics director thing for two hours,” the Comets coach continued.
Regardless of where he focuses, the Comets succeed with Stein, whether on the sideline or in the dugout. In football, Stein has taken over for Nick Monica’s father, hall-of-famer Frank Monica, and the Comets are in the middle of a dynastic era: making the state championship game five years in a row, but St. Charles Catholic ends 2023 one play short of three straight titles.
“Six inches away from three-peating. Couldn’t be prouder of the way our kids handled the loss. It wasn’t a bunch of helmets being thrown. The way they handled themselves in the media. You hope as a coach, when it does happen, they’re gonna act that way. I couldn’t be any prouder of the way they handled themselves than I would if they would’ve hoisted the trophy one more time. That in itself is a lesson. I hope our kids learned it. We talked about that right after the game. ‘Hey, maybe this is what we needed to do to learn this before baseball season,'” Stein added.
But Stein has already taught championship lessons from the gridiron to the diamond. St. Charles Catholic’s baseball team is coming off back-to-back state championships, adding to their trophy case for the third time in the last four seasons, but the Comets’ skipper is quick to point out how close his team came to losing in the 2023 playoffs. Down to their last three outs versus U-High in the quarterfinals, the Comets hits a walk-off homerun to beat the Cubs on their title run.
“That’s one thing about baseball. You can’t take a knee. You can’t pass the ball around like you can in basketball. You gotta get 21 outs, and if there’s an out left, we gotta chance. The moment’s on the wall: Jackson Monica, maybe the biggest moment in St. Charles Catholic history, hits a three-run homerun. I do remind them about that though cause some people forget that. ‘Oh, you were the back-to-back champions.’ You forget that we were three outs away from going home in the quarters. Every now and then, I gotta give them that reminder,” Stein added.
Wayne Stein of St. Charles Catholic. This week’s coach of the week, presented by Delgado Community College: Step Closer to Unstoppable.
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