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View Full Version : Tragedy Made Steve Kerr See the World Beyond the Court



Rich
12-25-2016, 11:39 AM
I remember when Steve Kerr's Arizona team played Duke in Cameron in the '80's and Coach K specifically told the Crazies that any chants about his father, who was recently killed, were strictly off limits. Apparently, ASU students were not similarly admonished. I never knew the extent of the situation until this morning's compelling article in the NY Times. A must read, IMHO.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/22/sports/basketball/steve-kerr-golden-state-warriors.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection% 2Fsports&action=click&contentCollection=sports&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=2&pgtype=sectionfront&_r=0

subzero02
12-25-2016, 11:49 AM
I read that article a few days ago. It is very well written and definitely worth the time. I remember hearing about the ASU incident while Kerr was still playing in the NBA. I was going to look up the box score from that game to see how Kerr performed but haven't gotten around to it.

ipatent
12-25-2016, 12:26 PM
Have to admire the father's service and sacrifice, these are people who could do very well in the corporate world and place themselves in harm's way anyway out of love for country. Also have to admire how the son bounced back and made himself a star as a player and a coach in an entirely different profession where there's no faking proficiency and effectiveness.

Quite a family.

53n206
12-25-2016, 04:55 PM
Steve comes from a family of stars.

DU82
12-26-2016, 01:54 AM
I remember when Steve Kerr's Arizona team played Duke in Cameron in the '80's and Coach K specifically told the Crazies that any chants about his father, who was recently killed, were strictly off limits. Apparently, ASU students were not similarly admonished. I never knew the extent of the situation until this morning's compelling article in the NY Times. A must read, IMHO.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/22/sports/basketball/steve-kerr-golden-state-warriors.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection% 2Fsports&action=click&contentCollection=sports&region=rank&module=package&version=highlights&contentPlacement=2&pgtype=sectionfront&_r=0

NO! NO! NO!! NO!!!!

Steve Kerr NEVER played in Cameron with Arizona. The first game they played in Durham was on 1990, and Kerr had graduated three years prior.

What you remember is another player. I am blanking out now on who it was, perhaps Brian Williams (later Bison Dale, later lost at sea.). He played at both Maryland and Arizona. (Jim Summer or Olympic Fan or anybody else, do you remember the specific player?)

Jim3k
12-26-2016, 02:43 AM
And in it, for a few moments, you can see a pre-Grayson Allen--fiery and angry and oh-so-competitive. Allen might actually learn something from this article.

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/22/sports/basketball/steve-kerr-golden-state-warriors.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection% 2Fsports

Mostly, though this is a retrospective on Kerr, his father's assassination and how he came to be who he is. As a semi-Wildcat (L'67) I cast an occasional eye on that basketball team, and did so in the 80's when Steve was the Talk of Tucson. As you can see from the article, Steve essentially made Lute Olson; but that is not the point. The point is that Kerr's unique background has made him into somebody very special. Not just in basketball or sport in general, but as a national personality. One who makes extremely good common sense.

As an aside, is he the sort of person to come from nowhere to be a national leader? Whatever he chooses to do in the next few years, he is a man to watch.

YmoBeThere
12-26-2016, 06:28 AM
NO! NO! NO!! NO!!!!

Steve Kerr NEVER played in Cameron with Arizona. The first game they played in Durham was on 1990, and Kerr had graduated three years prior.

What you remember is another player. I am blanking out now on who it was, perhaps Brian Williams (later Bison Dale, later lost at sea.). He played at both Maryland and Arizona. (Jim Summer or Olympic Fan or anybody else, do you remember the specific player?)

I attended that game, it was important for me as I went to high school in Arizona(there were 3 of us from AZ my freshman year) and about 10% of my senior class went to UofA. I don't remember anything specific going on with Brian Williams at the time but he was always known as being a bit eccentric. He was part of a huge front line at the time with he, Sean Rooks, and Ed Stokes. I had a co-worker who played against him in the 1991 NCAA Tournament, at 6-7, 225, he was his team's tallest player. He mentioned getting lost among the trees.

ipatent
12-26-2016, 08:47 AM
There was a game in the '80s (before ESPN, so I didn't see it) where Duke played at Arizona and was allegedly homered out of a win by a PAC-10 ref, I think his name was Booker Turner. Not sure if Kerr was playing in that game, but it would have been around his time.

FadedTackyShirt
12-26-2016, 09:32 AM
There was a game in the '80s (before ESPN, so I didn't see it) where Duke played at Arizona and was allegedly homered out of a win by a PAC-10 ref, I think his name was Booker Turner. Not sure if Kerr was playing in that game, but it would have been around his time.

Duke played UofA in three consecutive seasons (1988-1990). Booker Turner was a notoriously bad PAC ref. One of my friends was on a short plane fight in the '90s and his seat mate looked vaguely familiar. Figured out it was Booker after the fact and was relieved since he would have had to give him grief during the flight for prior sins against hoops.

1988 'Cats were a special team. Remind me of the '78 and '86 Devils and the Knicks of the early '70s-terrific teams with compelling personalities and great chemistry.

Tom Tolbert has a Bay Area sports talk show. He interviewed Kerr when Steve was named the 'Dubs coach. They had an extended discussion about their favorite college Halloween costume-wearing empty Coors Light twelve packs on their heads.

ipatent
12-26-2016, 10:50 AM
That was before the internet as we know it, and the best a Duke fan living away from Durham could do to stay informed was to subscribe to Dennis Wuycik's PooP Sheet. Before multiple ESPN channels (or before they became known to me) and a lot of big games went unwatched. The morning newspaper was relevant.

Rich
12-26-2016, 11:37 AM
There was a game in the '80s (before ESPN, so I didn't see it) where Duke played at Arizona and was allegedly homered out of a win by a PAC-10 ref, I think his name was Booker Turner. Not sure if Kerr was playing in that game, but it would have been around his time.

Thanks for clarifying...TV, Cameron, I am obviously "misremembering" and perhaps it was something the announcers were discussing on a telecast. Sucks getting older and losing track of my own memories from my youth.

OldPhiKap
12-26-2016, 04:55 PM
That was before the internet as we know it, and the best a Duke fan living away from Durham could do to stay informed was to subscribe to Dennis Wuycik's PooP Sheet. Before multiple ESPN channels (or before they became known to me) and a lot of big games went unwatched. The morning newspaper was relevant.

I wanna say that "the deuce" did not get broad pick-up by providers until 1992 or later.

DU82
12-26-2016, 05:06 PM
There was a game in the '80s (before ESPN, so I didn't see it) where Duke played at Arizona and was allegedly homered out of a win by a PAC-10 ref, I think his name was Booker Turner. Not sure if Kerr was playing in that game, but it would have been around his time.

The only game Arizona has ever played in Cameron was in 1990, the season after the game in the Meadowlands when Christian Laettner missed a free throw and Duke suffered its only loss in that building.

The game at Arizona was in Feb. 1991. Besides the uneven foul calls, I believe the refs blew a three point call by Duke that would have won the game ineither regulation or the first OT.

Back to the player who Coach K and the team went to the students before the game and asking them to leave him alone, I believe I had the wrong Williams. Scott Williams of UNC suffered a double loss his sophomore year when his father killed his mother, then shot himself. I'm pretty sure that's the game/plYer in question. There were other instance, including a Wake player who was having some mental health issues (the details escape me) and then some such as Erick Barkley at St Johns who ended up beating us in 2000.

OldPhiKap
12-26-2016, 05:09 PM
The only game Arizona has ever played in Cameron was in 1990, the season after the game in the Meadowlands when Christian Laettner missed a free throw and Duke suffered its only loss in that building.

The game at Arizona was in Feb. 1991. Besides the uneven foul calls, I believe the refs blew a three point call by Duke that would have won the game ineither regulation or the first OT.

Back to the player who Coach K and the team went to the students before the game and asking them to leave him alone, I believe I had the wrong Williams. Scott Williams of UNC suffered a double loss his sophomore year when his father killed his mother, then shot himself. I'm pretty sure that's the game/plYer in question. There were other instance, including a Wake player who was having some mental health issues (the details escape me) and then some such as Erick Barkley at St Johns who ended up beating us in 2000.

K was apparently close with Mike Jarvis, and I recall K getting irate during a game when the Crazies started razzing Jarvis about likely getting fired. IIRC K waived the crowd down with an angry cat scowl.

ipatent
12-26-2016, 07:13 PM
The game at Arizona was in Feb. 1991.

They lost another game at Arizona on December 30, 1987. I think that was the one with the Booker Turner controversy.

Indoor66
12-26-2016, 07:28 PM
The only game Arizona has ever played in Cameron was in 1990, the season after the game in the Meadowlands when Christian Laettner missed a free throw and Duke suffered its only loss in that building.

The game at Arizona was in Feb. 1991. Besides the uneven foul calls, I believe the refs blew a three point call by Duke that would have won the game ineither regulation or the first OT.

Back to the player who Coach K and the team went to the students before the game and asking them to leave him alone, I believe I had the wrong Williams. Scott Williams of UNC suffered a double loss his sophomore year when his father killed his mother, then shot himself. I'm pretty sure that's the game/plYer in question. There were other instance, including a Wake player who was having some mental health issues (the details escape me) and then some such as Erick Barkley at St Johns who ended up beating us in 2000.

The Wake player was a 7 footer from St. Louis named Loren Roberts. In addition, he and Chris Carrawell were HS teammates, IIRC properly.

DU82
12-26-2016, 09:24 PM
They lost another game at Arizona on December 30, 1987. I think that was the one with the Booker Turner controversy.

The Duke media guide says that was at a neutral site. That may have been in Phoenix, with the Meadowlands game the next season the return. Thanks for the reminder of the circumstances.

ipatent
12-26-2016, 09:47 PM
The Duke media guide says that was at a neutral site. That may have been in Phoenix, with the Meadowlands game the next season the return. Thanks for the reminder of the circumstances.

If I can trust sportsreference.com, Duke was #9 at the time and Arizona was #1. They both ended up in the final four, where Kansas and Danny Manning beat Duke and Billy Tubb's Oklahoma team beat Arizona.

Oklahoma had a heck of a team that year.

-jk
12-26-2016, 11:05 PM
The Wake player was a 7 footer from St. Louis named Loren Roberts. In addition, he and Chris Carrawell were HS teammates, IIRC properly.

Loren Woods, I think...

-jk

Indoor66
12-27-2016, 07:34 AM
Loren Woods, I think...

-jk

I stand corrected. Also, he transferred out of Wake, I seem to recall, after his sophomore year.

OldPhiKap
12-27-2016, 07:36 AM
I stand corrected. Also, he transferred out of Wake, I seem to recall, after his sophomore year.

. . . to Arizona.

clarkwgriswold4
12-27-2016, 10:09 AM
. . . to Arizona.

... where he started on the 2001 team we beat for title #3. Full circle. Woods had a great game IIRC.