In the last few seconds of last year`s final game of the NBA championships, Michael Jordan could not free himself to take the game-winning shot. So the greatest player on the planet passed the ball to a guy who was so lightly regarded out of high school that only two colleges offered him basketball scholarships.
So, what did Steve Kerr do? He took Jordan`s pass and made the basket that won the championship.
Michael Jordan and Scottie Pippen may get most of the headlines. But without players like Steve Kerr, the Bulls would not be trying this season for their sixth championship. These players aren`t flashy; they don`t dye their hair funny colors. They are simply players who will do whatever they can to make their teams better. And when they are needed, they are ready.
“It sounds kind of corny, but I`m kind of like the tortoise and the hare,” Kerr said one day after practice. “A lot of guys have been better players, but 10, 15 years of hard work have paid off for me.”
By the time Kerr got to high school, he realized there were players who were better than he was. But he didn`t give up.
“I knew if I worked hard over an extended period of time I could eventually be better than them.”
Like a kid who realizes that somebody else is the Michael Jordan of the school, Kerr knows that no matter how hard he works, his skills will never match those of some league superstars. But he knows that he is still an important part of the team.
“If you just accept that it is somebody else`s team and you are not a big part of it, you`re not going to contribute at all,” he said. “I know that as a role player your contribution is extremely important.”
That means having confidence in your abilities, he said. “If you are not confident, you are not going to make it.”
And that goes for other stuff besides basketball. In fact, if kids want to admire players, Kerr recommends they look beyond the ability to play basketball.
“In reality you`re just playing a game,” he said. “What we do is really not that important.”
Instead, kids should look at what the players did to get where they are, and how hard they worked. “What`s important,” he said, is to “look at their passion and work ethic.” Those two things “are great for life in general.”
