Steve Kerr won five championships as a player and three as a coach. He won a record 72 games in a season as a player and broke it as coach years later. He was part of one dynasty with Chicago Bulls as a player and another dynasty, Golden State Warriors, as a coach.
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Yet the most beautiful narrative around him does not revolve around either of the aforementioned stints. Perhaps highlighting what the ongoing pandemic has shown us- that sport is such a small part of our lives.
A beat writer Saad Yousuf shared an interview with Kerr recalling him as a truly spectacular human being. The background of this story goes back to 1984. Kerr was 18 when he heard terrorists shot his father Malcolm Kerr, killing him.
The Last Dance showcased this story from Kerr’s teenage days. It had Steve and his mother recall how Malcolm was influential in his son liking basketball.
Kerr found out about his father in his dorm room in Arizona.
“So I received a phone call in the middle of the night from a family friend,” Kerr said. “My phone rang in my dorm at 3 o’clock in the morning, so I knew something was up. He just said, ‘Steve, I have terrible news.’
“Basketball was the one thing I could do to take my mind off what happened. So I went to practice the next day. I didn’t know what else to do.”
It might have been a huge wound to Kerr who was just 18 then.
A considerate and compassionate Steve Kerr
Years later, in 2017, Saad Yousuf, after an interview with Kerr, would find out how much humanity Kerr had in him. Yousuf said that Kerr had a conversation with him off the camera asking him whether he was doing fine in Trump’s America.
It would have been easy for Kerr to choose the path against a race for killing his father but what Kerr did shows the kind of human being he is.
Kerr narrated his tragic incident to Yousuf and said he was aware that terrorism hasn’t got much to do with race or religion. “The people that want to be assholes will create reasons. Just know the rest of us have your back,” he quoted Kerr as saying.
Here is the full twitter thread from Saa Yousuf
October 23, 2017.
I had a scheduled one-on-one interview with Steve Kerr at morning shootaround. It was about Dirk and his potential retirement down the road. We did the interview before he met with the general media. About 3-5 mins.
— Saad Yousuf (@SaadYousuf126) May 18, 2020
Steve Kerr pulled me aside, no recorders, no cameras. He asked me how I was doing in “Trump’s America.” I said I was fine, family was going through some stuff. He told me about his dad, who were killed by extremists “Islamic” terrorists.
— Saad Yousuf (@SaadYousuf126) May 18, 2020
We crossed paths whenever he’d come through the AAC the past few years. He always asks how I’m doing, how my family is doing. We’ve talked about foreign policy, racism and humanity.
Steve Kerr is the biggest class act in all of professional sports.
— Saad Yousuf (@SaadYousuf126) May 18, 2020
My favorite interview of all time. Mostly because of the few moments that followed. pic.twitter.com/YrzoQEWJQu
— Saad Yousuf (@SaadYousuf126) May 18, 2020