Stafford North

It’s January 5, 1988, Dr. James Dobson, the well-known writer and speaker on family life, has invited Pete Maravitch to be a guest on his nation-wide radio broadcast. Maravitch had been the leading career scorer in NCAA basketball, playing for LSU, and had been a star in the NBA, playing for the Utah Jazz.  Now Maravitch, forty, had retired from professional basketball.  Since he was an avid believer in Christ, Dobson wanted him to appear on his broadcast.

 At noon on that day, Maravitch joined Dobson and a few others in a “pick-up” basketball game. In the middle of the game, Maravitch fell to the floor, seriously ill.  Within a few minutes he died of a heart-attack in Dr. Dobson’s arms.

 You can imagine the terrible feeling Dr. Dobson had about the incident.  He had invited Maravitch to California to be on his radio program.  He invited him to play basketball.  And now Maravitch was dead.

Dr. Dobson and his family spent a lot of time discussing, Pete’s death.  They were deeply touched and thought how brief life is and how quickly it can end.  Among their family, they discussed how important it was that they all meet in heaven.  Whatever else happened, whether death came soon or late, their major goal in life was to meet in heaven.  In their conversation, the worked out a “short-hand” way of expressing this thought to each other.  The put forward their hand with the thumb pointing up and said, “Be There!”

 A few months later, Dr. Dobson had a heart-attack.  He was in intensive care with a host of tubes attached.  His grown son came to see him and wanted to communicate even though Dr. Dobson could not speak.  The father and son did send a message.  The both put their hands out in the sign for “Be There!”

In the summer of 1992, when the North family had its annual retreat to Padre Island, Stafford told this story to the family and asked that they use this statement and sing in their family as a way of sharing with each other that the highest goal of every family member is to meet all the other family members in heaven. 

It has been the North family motto ever since.