Golden State Warriors and Team USA head coach Steve Kerr is very familiar with Chicago’s United Center, but he’ll be taking the stage in a different way on the DNC’s opening night.
Kerr, who won three straight championships with the Chicago Bulls between 1996 and 1998 and scored in Game 6 of the 1997 NBA Finals, will address congressional delegates in Chicago on Monday.
In all, Kerr won five championships as a player and has won four more as a coach with the Warriors, posting a 519-274 record in 10 seasons at the helm.
Kerr also helped Team USA capture the gold medal in men’s basketball at the recent Paris Olympics, though he is not “expected to continue” in that role moving forward, according to NBA Insider Marc Stein.
The coach likely won’t talk too much about basketball during his remarks. As a fierce critic of former President Donald Trump, Kerr is likely to praise President Joe Biden’s administration and Vice President Kamala Harris’ candidacy, having offered his support for their ticket in the 2020 election cycle.
Kerr has been an active advocate for gun control legislation, spurred on by the shooting death of her father Malcolm Kerr 1984 by Islamic Jihad terrorists in Beirut.
Kerr has also praised the efforts of the Black Lives Matter movement and has also been a target of Trump’s ire, including in the aftermath of Chief Executive Daryl Morey’s praise of anti-government protests in Hong Kong in 2019.
Trump called Kerr a “scared little boy” in the aftermath of those comments, to which Kerr did not immediately respond.
“This was my experience of, wow, has the office sunk low. My hope is that we can find a mature unifier from either party to sit in that chair and try to restore some dignity to the Oval Office again, and I think that will happen.” he said of the former president’s comments.