YouSaid · the spoken record

Steve Kerr

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84

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2017-11-26

most recent

2017-11-26

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1

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1. “Right, right. It was the kind of thing that back then was kind of a local story. Today, if that happened, it would be miserable to deal with that. There would have been a national story. It would have been unbearable. But at the time, it was at least an era where there wasn't this 24-7 invasion on your privacy that happens all the time now. So I dealt with the local media or whatever and the game itself was very emotional. The fans were so supportive. And from that point on, I became like an adopted son in Tucson. And people there were so amazing. They took care of me and a basketball program, the coaches, my teammates, and I was lucky, but the team...”

   2017-11-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 194 - Steve Kerr · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

2. “Family was overseas. Well, I turned to my teammates, and that's one of the beautiful things about sports is it's like a built-in family and kind of a cocoon and you can lose yourself in sports. You can lose yourself in physical activity. So I went to practice the next day and my teammates knew what happened, obviously. My coach, you know, Lud Olson, I spent, I think I slept for three hours on his couch in his office the next day when it happened. I didn't sleep all night and then I didn't know what to do, but I practiced that afternoon. I needed to think about something else. So I just kept playing and kept going to school and you just move on.”

   2017-11-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 194 - Steve Kerr · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

3. “Yeah, three o'clock in the morning, my dorm room, and a man named Vahi Simone, a good Armenian name. He worked at the University of Great Family Friend. He called me to give me the news. That my dad had been shot and killed. And obviously, you know, my whole world changed. Our family's whole lives ended in a certain way and a new life had to begin. And it was pretty rough.”

   2017-11-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 194 - Steve Kerr · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

4. “Well, not immediately, but I think it was about six months later he was making another similar drive, taking someone else on the same route and was killed by a sniper. So, I mean, I was 17 years old and sort of oblivious to all this. Obviously recognized the danger but didn't think anything was going to happen to me or us.”

   2017-11-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 194 - Steve Kerr · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

5. “Yeah, I was. And yet there's still, you know, when you're young and innocent, you think everything in the world is going to go your way. You think you're immune to stuff. And then at some point you're not. And I think we all go through that, right? You don't know exactly when and where and how. And then what I mean by that is... Life happens, right? People you love die, they get sick, things happen.”

   2017-11-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 194 - Steve Kerr · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

6. “Had to drive with that same driver through Syria into Jordan and eventually flew home from Amman on Jordanian Airlines, I still remember. And it was about five days after that had happened. So, you know, at that point, it's like, my God, this is...”

   2017-11-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 194 - Steve Kerr · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

7. “Yeah, my mom took me to the airport. I was heading back for my first day of school at U of A and we went to the airport and all of a sudden there was some shelling on the runway. We were in the terminal and we've heard this big explosion and the whole terminal, everybody just froze. And then we heard another one and it was a little closer. And it wasn't like windows were breaking or anything, but it was pretty obvious that there were bombs going on nearby. And it turned out it was the runways. I can't remember exactly who was doing the shelling, but they wanted to make a statement and close the airport down. And so at that point, everybody took off running. My mom and I ran out of the terminal and jumped in a car. I think we had a driver and drove because she was going to drop me off and go back to the campus with the driver. And we jumped in with the driver and went back to campus on”

   2017-11-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 194 - Steve Kerr · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

8. “That's right And he became the most prominent American in Beirut at the time because you mentioned the embassy bombing. There was the marine barracks that were bombed, I think, over 300 Marines were killed. It was awful. And so the military left, the embassy basically, after was bombed, I don't remember if it was closed, but it was obviously basically shut down for the most part people left. So the American University campus became sort of the next obvious place where you were going to find Americans. And he was the president. And so he was the target.”

   2017-11-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 194 - Steve Kerr · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

9. “Well, it was his dream job having been raised at the university literally and then going to school there, speaking fluent Arabic, loving the culture in Beirut, loving the idea of bringing people, students to the university who could foster peace and understanding amongst all the different religious groups. He loved that. He loved that challenge. He loved the idea. And when the job came up, he knew it was dangerous, but I think he felt somewhat protected because of his background and because of his reputation. But obviously that was...”

   2017-11-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 194 - Steve Kerr · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

10. “I did speak it pretty well enough to get around when I was there for a couple years. And I saw Americans in Cairo we were beloved. This is the late 70s, beloved what we stood for, our culture. Everybody copied us. And we were beloved. And I think we still are. And for the most part In a lot of places around the world, but people are wondering what the hell happened to us. They don't love our foreign policy. They don't love what's happening with our government. But I think they still love American values, whether we're hanging on to those values or not, we'll see. But I saw all that. I saw different perspectives. I saw how people saw us, and then I was in somebody else's backyard having to adapt to their culture. And those are great things to experience as a human being.”

    2017-11-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 194 - Steve Kerr · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

11. “Three years in Cairo, a year in France, a summer in Tunisia. So I got this incredible education, even if I probably didn't appreciate it. At the time, you know, when you're 12, you just want to hang out with your buddies on the beach in LA. But we got that too. We sort of went back and forth. So I was really blessed to kind of see the world and meet a lot of different people”

    2017-11-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 194 - Steve Kerr · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

12. “Yeah, yeah, actually my grandparents settled in Beirut after World War I. They had a A really great history of running an orphanage for Armenian children during the Armenian Holocaust. And they ended up settling in Beirut afterwards. The orphanage was actually in Lebanon, and they loved Beirut so much, so they settled and they ended up being working at the university, the American University. And so my dad was born there and raised there. And eventually taught there, went to grad school there, taught there, and that's where I was born. My two older siblings were born there. But my dad eventually took a job at UCLA, so we spent a lot of time in Los Angeles. And then periodically, he would take sabbaticals overseas. He was a professor of Middle Eastern history. And so we spent time in Cairo and Tunisia.”

    2017-11-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 194 - Steve Kerr · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

13. “Getting massacred every week. We won't do anything about it. That's ridiculous to me and it drives me crazy. And so I'm constantly retweeting. Stuff that I read about that issue because it means something to me.”

    2017-11-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 194 - Steve Kerr · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

14. “So, I learned my lesson with Twitter. Like, you got to be really careful, especially now. So, I'm more interested in just retweeting articles, trying to spread the word. If I see something really sensible, Nick Christophe wrote a great piece in The New York Times two weeks ago about comparing gun safety to the automobile industry. In the 50s, you were nine times as likely to die in a car accident than you are today. And the reason it's gone down is simple safety measures, seatbelts, car seats, speed limits, making sure driver's license background stuff was thorough and the right people were behind the wheel. And the whole article was like, we don't have to take away people's Second Amendment rights, but what we need is some common sense, and yet people are...”

    2017-11-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 194 - Steve Kerr · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

15. “Yeah, yeah, I tweet a lot of, I mostly retweet stuff. Especially in the position that I'm in, I used to tweet when I was a commentator for TNT, and I would tweet about basketball. And as with everything in Twitter, stuff gets thrown back in my face all the time. I was working at TNT and LeBron had a huge game and I tweeted something like if I could pick one player to have in a road game game seven in the playoffs, I'd take LeBron. You think any Cleveland fans might have retweeted that after Cleveland beat us on the road in game seven? Yeah.”

    2017-11-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 194 - Steve Kerr · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

16. “That's a good question. I don't know that I feel a responsibility. It's more just in my heart. I'm so, so disgusted by the lack of sensible gun policy. I'm so disgusted.”

    2017-11-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 194 - Steve Kerr · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

17. “Yeah, exactly. To me, this is more a question of how the world works now and social media and just the whole way we operate. Everybody has a voice. It just so happens that if you're famous, more people are going to follow you.”

    2017-11-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 194 - Steve Kerr · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

18. “They shouldn't. They don't need to. If they don't want to, then they don't have to. But everybody's got a Twitter feed, you know? Like, why does anybody care about people who probably should?”

    2017-11-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 194 - Steve Kerr · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

19. “Yeah, it's a slight protest. It's nowhere near as courageous as what a lot of people are doing, but it would definitely be a statement that With the president”

    2017-11-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 194 - Steve Kerr · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

20. “It is really the fun part of coaching is trying to connect with each player, understand his circumstances and challenges on the floor, off the floor, where he came from. And that's in the NBA, you got guys from all over the world. I think there's over 100 foreign players. Obviously, you have huge African-American percentage of players. But you've got this vast background just on our own team. We've got guys from the Republic of Georgia and Israel. We've got Steph Curry and Clay Thompson grew up in NBA families. We've got guys who came from really difficult backgrounds. We've got guys who are from huge families and only children. And that's what makes coaching fun. You have to figure all that stuff out and how do you connect with each player and then how does that all form as a group?”

    2017-11-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 194 - Steve Kerr · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

21. “We're born white, we're born poor or rich, whatever. We are just, you know, we are who we are, and it's so important to understand who the other person is and where he came from because it's in most cases, it's very different. And the more you can learn about that person, the easier it is to get out of that silo that you mentioned and understand that there's nuance to everything in the world.”

    2017-11-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 194 - Steve Kerr · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

22. “It's really one of the great blessings in my life is to have been raised overseas in different cultures with different people from all over the world. And then actually from junior high on, basically living and working or going to school in integrated situations and then being in the NBA for, I guess, 20 seven years now, whatever, 29 years. It's a multicultural melting pot work environment and you understand you start to see where everybody comes from. And my old coach, Greg Popovic, has one of the great sayings I've ever heard. He said, we are all just an accident of birth, you know? Like none of us are asked to be born into the situations we're born and we're born black.”

    2017-11-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 194 - Steve Kerr · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

23. “Oh no, no, no. Draymond says whatever he wants anytime he wants, which is what I love about him. But I had never heard that argument either. I had never heard the idea that referencing an owner would be offensive. But of course, you and I are white guys. We've grown up in a different background, different environment. And I think that was Dremond's point, is that we all have sort of a different circumstance in life. And you've got to think about everybody's circumstance. You've got to put yourself in somebody else's shoes. It makes perfect sense.”

    2017-11-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 194 - Steve Kerr · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

24. “Yeah, but think about it. I mean, you're right, it was diabolically clever. But is that the president's job to be diabetic? No, diabolically clever. No.”

    2017-11-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 194 - Steve Kerr · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

25. “Get used to it after a while, you get numb to it, but that one really stung because it was so divisive and it was so angry and it just didn't make sense.”

    2017-11-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 194 - Steve Kerr · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

26. “With you guys. Yeah, well, this is another reason why I think all of us and our team have a tough time with the president because it's instead of unifying and trying to calm the storm, he's creating it over and over again. We see it with his tweets every day. So that was, you know, he used the word sons of bitches to talk about NFL players who have made it clear they're protesting racial inequality and police brutality. Those are sons of bitches, really. You're going to call, you're the president of the United States, you're going to call them sons of bitches. And you're going to call Kaepernick out for nonviolent protest, a staple of American democracy. That's really hard to deal with. And that was, for me, that was probably the hardest one to deal with. You know, the personal slights that we've seen from Trump, I mean, you sort of get...”

    2017-11-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 194 - Steve Kerr · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

27. “Whether he was a great college quarterback or an NFL quarter, there were no political dynamics to it or anything. But the distraction was so dramatic that the teams that signed them were sort of overwhelmed. So I think that same dynamic exists right now with Kaepernick. I think teams don't want to.”

    2017-11-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 194 - Steve Kerr · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

28. “He's clearly a much better player than a lot of the guys who are playing backup quarterback around the league. I think there's two reasons he's not in the NFL. One is marketing. I think the NFL owners are concerned about their fan base. And two, and these reasons really go hand in hand, the distraction that he would cause given modern media, the way we live, the minute he signs with a team, can you imagine the media throng, the attention that will be on every game? And so I understand, I totally understand a general manager who doesn't want to deal with that. You think about Tim Thibault, for example. You know, Tim Thibault was such a distraction because he was Tim Thibault. And it didn't even become, you know, was he good enough or it was like this sort of cultural war over Tim Tibau. And that was just nothing, right? Tim Thibault, what did he represent? He represented...”

    2017-11-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 194 - Steve Kerr · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

29. “So once he refined things, once he sort of figured out what he wanted to do, what he wanted to say, I thought he had a really powerful message and it's proven to be very much so.”

    2017-11-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 194 - Steve Kerr · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

30. “I fully supported his right to speak out. I thought he made some mistakes, some big mistakes early. He wore the socks. Remember the socks that were policemen uniforms. He, I think, he didn't have a clear message at first, but I supported his right to protest. And I think what he did was really admirable. He went out and sought the advice of a man named Nate Boyer, who was a former player with a Seahawks who I believe was a ranger, an army ranger. I may have that wrong. He might have been a seal, but he was a military veteran who gave Kaepernick the advice to Neil. And he said, instead of sitting on the bench, Neil, because kneeling is also a sign of respect if you think about you bow in front of somebody. And so this was the advice that Kaepernick sought out. So he sort of refined his message. He started saying, I thought things that made more sense in terms of clarifying what he was protesting. And instead of sitting, he knelt, which from the advice of Nate Boyer was a sign of, okay, I'm protesting, but I'm also doing it in a respectful manner.”

    2017-11-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 194 - Steve Kerr · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

31. “We did. We talked about it over the summer a little bit. It's hard to get together with the whole team in the summer. Everybody's scattered. And so we knew that the invitation, whether it was going to come or not, Yeah, yeah, it was going to be first there was the logistical issue of discussing it as a team. And so what happened was we had media day and we were planning on meeting literally the next day to discuss this issue. But on media day, that's when President Trump tweeted out, or that's when Steph announced I would not go if we're invited. And that sort of made it easy for everybody, to be honest with you.”

    2017-11-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 194 - Steve Kerr · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

32. “It's just a human dignity. It's a human respect issue. And so with all of those presidents that I mentioned, they were all above reproach in terms of their respect for their fellow man and their respect for the office. And I don't think any of us see that right now. We see what President Trump does with his words, with his actions. And it's difficult to reconcile that and just say, we'll put all that aside. You know, he can make fun of handicapped people. He can say a lot of nasty things, ugly things, whether it's about women, whomever. There can be a lot of things that happen that are just really difficult to just say, all right, we'll put that aside and go visit and shake his hand. It doesn't feel right.”

    2017-11-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 194 - Steve Kerr · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

33. “Sure, sure. I think it goes way beyond politics. I think I made the statement that I've been lucky to visit the White House with, I think, four different presidents. President Reagan, President Clinton, both President Bush's. And I didn't always agree with their policy, but I never once thought about, oh my gosh, I'm not going to go because I disagree with immigration or some foreign policy or tax reform.”

    2017-11-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 194 - Steve Kerr · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

34. “Well, first we weren't invited, but I think our guys felt pretty strongly even before we knew that we didn't have an invitation, that it was going to be a tough visit. A lot of us, myself included, have been pretty critical of President Trump. And so it would have been a A very non traditional visit. You think about the White House visit with the championship teams. It's a photo op. It's a thrill. Everybody's making jokes and having fun. You give the president the jersey. And that's it. And it's kind of a fun day. But times have changed. The world has changed. The office of the presidency has changed. And so the whole dynamic of the athlete visit has shifted entirely.”

    2017-11-26 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 194 - Steve Kerr · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source