Hoops4theSoul

Mar

1

What Red Kerr Still Means to Me

Filed Under NBA, Chicago Bulls

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Michael Jordan and Johnny “Red” Kerr Johnny “Red” Kerr Statue John Paxson & Johnny “Red” Kerr Being a 27-year-old man who grew up in Chicago and has lived here for 21 of those years (excluding college at the University of Illinois and a two-year stay in Raleigh, North Carolina), I’ve been following the Chicago Bulls and the late Johnny “Red” Kerr for as long as I can remember the earliest events in my life.

You see I was a bit too young back in the day to remember the 1985 Bears or the great Walter Payton. My lasting and only image of Payton (prior to watching the videotape of Super Bowl XX over and over again in high school and learning more about him after his sudden death in 1999 ) was his last game against the Washington Redskins in the 1988 playoffs, when he was forced out of bounds on the final play of another shocking home loss. I specifically remember my aunt Donna sighing and summarizing the gravity of that moment with the sad words, “Well, that’s it for Walter,” with the room going deathly silent afterwards.

While many people in this city have special, early childhood connections with the Bears, Cubs, Sox and even the Hawks, the Chicago Bulls was the first team in this city that I ever connected with.

I vividly remember watching Bulls game on WFLD-TV back when I was in kindergarten (which was roughly in 1987) and mimicking the actions of the players on screen. Every time Michael Jordan, Charles Oakley or even Dave Corzine put up a shot, I would throw my plastic ball up against the brick walls of my parents’ living room in their house in Portage Park.

Watching in amazement at my interest in the game, my Dad commented on how much I seemed to like basketball, an observation that I quickly confirmed. That Christmas I got my first biddy basketball rim, a moment that would forever change things in the basement of our home. When I grew out of that rim and broke other Nerf rims, I gravitated towards our basement washing machine, which I would shoot into during my make-believe games for years to come, much to the chagrin of my parents.

From those early days watching the game and playing it at St. Bartholomew’s School on the Northwest side of the city, basketball would be the sport that always captured my heart. Sure, most boys have memories of playing sports as a kid and how much fun the games were before there were pressures to be good and win. Many people eventually grow out of those fascinations and move on to other things in their life. Not me.

To this day, basketball still has had a strange hold on me, as evident in such little facts that I have built a blog around the game, recorded thousands of games throughout the years, read countless books on the sport, worked with kids around learning the game, and played it whenever I could even when it was apparent that I had no direct future as a player or that my body (as it has shown in the last few years) is not built like it used to be.

I contribute this fascination around the game of basketball to the phenomenon that was Michael Jordan and his Chicago Bulls of the late eighties and most of the nineties, which of course included the larger-than-life personality of Kerr, the team’s first coach and a broadcaster for more than 30 years.

Just like Jordan, Kerr is another figure who will never be matched in this city.

While I never had the chance to meet Kerr, I felt like I knew the man after years of watching the Bulls on WGN-TV.

To me, Red Kerr was that man who made Jordan, Scottie Pippen and the rest of the Bulls tangible. He was that rare human being who seemed amazed and appreciative of being in the presence of all of these hardwood superheroes. In other words, he seemed like a regular, everyday guy enjoying the ride up close and personal while making fans like me feel as if we were at the rocking Chicago Stadium as opposed to the comfort of our living rooms.

Kerr’s passion for the game and the way in which he lived and died with the team was something that always excited me about the Bulls, even in those dire years after the dynasty, when players like Kornell David, Dragan Tarlac, Charles Jones and many others were thrown at a mourning fan base.  

Kerr’s genuine enthusiasm and interest in even those pathetic Chicago teams would make me feel as if those games  actually had meaning even when the Bulls were clearly going nowhere. I remember back in 2002 when the Bulls beat the defending champion Lakers during a game in which Shaquille O’Neal went after Brad Miller. Red Kerr seemed like he was going to jump into the skirmish that day, and when the Bulls later won that game, he made me feel as if the Bulls had won championship number seven. 

Sure, Johnny “Red” Kerr was a homer, but he was an old-school homer who truly cared about anything and everything that was the Chicago Bulls and professional basketball (unlike modern sportscasters who have a passion for the game that too often seems contrived, artificial, egotistical, political, or beneficial to the advancement of their careers).

Kerr was a man who showed me how great it was truly to be love with a game, a testament to when basketball was a sport as opposed to being just another component in the growing lexicon of sports entertainment.

Kerr was a man who never seemed to change, even when I was hit with my first understanding of the cynicism that comes with sports commentary.

Back in the nineties, the Chicago Sun-Times used to run an annual reader poll in which we, the fans, would get to rate the local sportscasters. I remember my brother – two years younger – and I salivating at the opportunity.

When we came to Kerr, we had nothing but the highest praise. We used words like a “living legend” at a time when we were probably 10 and 8 years old. When we were done with writing our comments in the poll, we mailed it to the Sun-Times.

Weeks later, I was disappointed to see that the paper had given Kerr a less than glowing review, saying that he wasn’t objective enough and that he screamed too much. It was one of those moments when I realized that not all people had similar opinions as me.  

Well, if Kerr wasn’t such a homer, who knows if I would have ever cared for the Bulls as I still do today, despite all their frustrating play, incompetence and lack of heart the last two seasons.

If Kerr hadn’t been so wrapped up Bulls games as an announcer, who knows if I ever would have developed such an interest in the game?

Sure, I would have likely followed the Bulls because of Jordan’s once-in-a-lifetime competitiveness and Pippen’s all-around game, but Kerr made the team that much more fun, the championships that much special, and the rare losses that much harder to swallow.

While Red Kerr’s passing this week was expected, it is still sad.

Years later, the word “legend” may seem a bit overdramatic and cliché, but to me, it still works when describing Kerr, a unique, lasting character who will probably always come just behind Jordan and Pippen when I think of the Bulls.

Even though he has gone, Red Kerr will not be forgotten.

I am thankful that I got to listen to him for many years. I will forever be indebted to his direct impact on the Bulls – a franchise that brought us six titles in eight years – and his indirect bearing on my appreciation for the game.

There will never be another person so wrapped up in the Bulls like Johnny “Red” Kerr was for more than 40 years.

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