BENTON, (WSIL) - Rich Herrin is synonymous with the game of basketball. The legendary Benton and SIU head coach died on Christmas day in 2020. Now a little more than a year after his passing, his legacy burns bright thanks to one of his former players.
Coach Rich Herrin is gone, But Matt Wynn who once played for Herrin made sure the Hall of Fame coach will never be forgotten.
"Coach had a great life and I think I thought it was a story that needed to be told and I think it has a lot of historical significance to our community here in Benton."
The story matt Wynn is referring to, is the new book he wrote titled - Rich Herrin: A Head Coach Ahead of his Time.
"I wrote the book to really just express my gratitude and appreciation for the lifer lessons and the impact he had on my life."
But coach Herrin did not just impact the life of Wynn, The 903 page book contains 154 player interviews and 464 photos recalling the glory days of some of his teams.
"There might be some people that pick the book up and they go to the year that they played and they maybe read their year and then maybe they want to pick it up later and they want to read more. He won 981 games but I believe his greatest victory was the impact he had on his players and the people around him."
The book places an emphasis on Herrin's 25-year run as coach of Benton high school and his time as the head man for SIU for more than a dozen seasons.
"He was passionate about what he did whether it was here or at SIU and he was very successful. At SIU he spent 13 years there he's a member of the Missouri Valley Conference hall of fame he's a member of the IBCA Hall of Fame as far as high school coaches here in Illinois and in my opinion he's one of the greatest coaches that's ever coached in the state of Illinois."
Herrin was a great motivator, a fantastic teacher of the game, and always found a way to get the best out of his players."
Winn also told me he started writing the book in June of 2020 and had plenty of encouragement from his family to go through with this idea. You can buy the 903 page book for around $45 dollars by going to the website
