Two men that I had a great deal of respect and admiration passed away within the last 24....Norman Van Lier and Johnny "Red" Kerr. I worked with these men from '90-'97 when we covered the Chicago Bulls for the defunct Chicago Sportschannel. Mr. Kerr was one of the classiest men I had ever met....and "Stormin Norman" was so suave and so cool to be around, you couldn't help be to feel like one of the boys when you hung out with the likes of him, Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen and others. They will be greatly missed be me and many in Chicagoans....
..very sad day....
February 27, 2009
BY RICK TELANDER rtelander@suntimes.com
Well, then, they went out together. Isn't that something?
It's hard to imagine how they could have been more dissimilar.
Except for that one thing. Basketball.
More precisely, the Bulls.
Johnny ''Red'' Kerr was a center, 6-9, thick-boned, white as typing paper, with red hair (duh), from the big city of Chicago.
Norm Van Lier was a dark-skinned, 6-1 African-American point guard from the small Pennsylvania town of Midland.
But both men were basketball men through and through. And they loved the Bulls.
That they both died Thursday -- Van Lier at 61 of still-unspecified reasons, Kerr at 76 after a long battle with prostate cancer -- is a coincidence of perhaps no importance.
What is important is that Van Lier, whose glory days were as a feisty, overachieving Bulls player, and Kerr, who was a star NBA player and the first coach in Bulls history, were friends, hoops lifers, Bulls commentators and men to be admired and reflected upon for years to come.
The Bulls are diminished as a franchise by the two men's deaths, and yet there is something triumphant in their dual farewells.
Both were such warmhearted, friendly, engaging, yet fiercely competitive athletes-turned-analysts that we in this city were blessed to have known them.
Forget the fact that Kerr liked to sing country songs in karaoke bars or on team buses or that Van Lier wished more than anything that he could have been, say, the bass player in the Jimi Hendrix Experience. These guys, in many ways, were the Bulls.
Kerr, Van Lier forever united by love for the Bulls :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Rick Telander
..very sad day....
February 27, 2009
BY RICK TELANDER rtelander@suntimes.com
Well, then, they went out together. Isn't that something?
It's hard to imagine how they could have been more dissimilar.
Except for that one thing. Basketball.
More precisely, the Bulls.
Johnny ''Red'' Kerr was a center, 6-9, thick-boned, white as typing paper, with red hair (duh), from the big city of Chicago.
Norm Van Lier was a dark-skinned, 6-1 African-American point guard from the small Pennsylvania town of Midland.
But both men were basketball men through and through. And they loved the Bulls.
That they both died Thursday -- Van Lier at 61 of still-unspecified reasons, Kerr at 76 after a long battle with prostate cancer -- is a coincidence of perhaps no importance.
What is important is that Van Lier, whose glory days were as a feisty, overachieving Bulls player, and Kerr, who was a star NBA player and the first coach in Bulls history, were friends, hoops lifers, Bulls commentators and men to be admired and reflected upon for years to come.
The Bulls are diminished as a franchise by the two men's deaths, and yet there is something triumphant in their dual farewells.
Both were such warmhearted, friendly, engaging, yet fiercely competitive athletes-turned-analysts that we in this city were blessed to have known them.
Forget the fact that Kerr liked to sing country songs in karaoke bars or on team buses or that Van Lier wished more than anything that he could have been, say, the bass player in the Jimi Hendrix Experience. These guys, in many ways, were the Bulls.
Kerr, Van Lier forever united by love for the Bulls :: CHICAGO SUN-TIMES :: Rick Telander
