Posted by chicagomedia.org on February 08, 2009 at 12:40:11:
In Reply to: Johnny "Red" Kerr posted by chicagomedia.org on January 26, 2009 at 11:07:37:
'What Chicago is all about'
As first coach and longtime broadcaster, JOHNNY 'RED' KERR has been a fixture among Bulls watchers for generations
February 8, 2009
BY JIM O'DONNELL | Chicago Sun-Times
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A few weeks ago, Jim Durham was in town to handle network radio duties for a Bulls game against the Cleveland Cavaliers.
It was only natural that he hook up with old chum Johnny Kerr. From 1975 to 1991, in various incarnations, the two formed one of the greatest play-by-play offerings in the electronic history of Chicago sports.
They were as entertaining as Harry Caray and Jimmy Piersall, as memorable as Jack Brickhouse and Irv Kupcinet, as energized and precise as Lloyd Pettit or Red Rush alone.
The visit alternated between chitchat and a TV quietly playing in the background. The lead story on the midday news was another blow-dried wave of gubernatorial show-and-shell from Springfield.
Kerr leaned forward, pointed at the TV and chuckled.
''You know, J.D.,'' Kerr said, ''we're still the only state where the governors make our license plates.''
Kerr quips on. He always has. The ailing 76-year-old legend will be honored Tuesday, when the Bulls play the Detroit Pistons at the United Center, and other pals such as Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen and Dolph Schayes are scheduled to salute his 35 years of service to the franchise.
Last month, chairman Jerry Reinsdorf announced that the Bulls had commissioned a statue of Kerr for placement outside the United Center, not far from the one that honors Jordan. That is only appropriate. Because if Jordan was the Bulls' Neil Armstrong, the man who touched the moon for Chicago, Kerr was Chuck Yeager, the pioneering test pilot who made so much of it possible.
''He was our Godfather, and we all knew it,'' Jordan once said. ''Just Red never wore pinstripes that much.''
Added former Bulls coach Doug Collins: ''Two men are synonymous with the Chicago Bulls, and that's Michael Jordan and Johnny Kerr. Take their stories, and you'll get an elaborate history of what has made that franchise so great.''
''Johnny has always been what Chicago is all about,'' said longtime NBA soulmate Jerry Sloan, who played for and coached the Bulls and now coaches the Utah Jazz. ''Tough, hard-nosed, from the streets and playgrounds. He took that first Bulls team to the playoffs, and no expansion team ever did that before or since. I hope they never forget that in Chicago.''
From Tilden to Illini to Bulls
It can be said with certainty that Kerr never will be forgotten in Chicago. As a broad-shouldered phenomenon, he is right there with the Daleys, Dick Butkus and the Chicago Skyway. As a force of fun and good nature, he has been a godsend to pro basketball.
''Johnny didn't even want to go out for the team at Tilden [Tech],'' said Nick Kladis, a friend for more than 60 years. ''He was about 6-foot-8, skinny and loved soccer. Our coach, Bill Postl, had to tell him: 'You have to play basketball, kid. It will take you places.'''
It did. It took the young Kerr first to a Public League title and then to the University of Illinois. There, he and mates such as Rod Fletcher and Irv Bemoras took the 1952 edition of the Illini to the Final Four. It was also in Champaign that a gorgeous young coed from Riverside would take Kerr's heart beyond the orange moon. Her name was Betsy Nemecek, and they met at Kam's, the legendary tap.
''She was the most beautiful girl I ever saw,'' Kerr said many times.
''I knew Johnny before he was anybody,'' she always would add.
They married in 1954, in time for his first NBA preseason with the Syracuse Nationals. The Nats were owned by Danny Biasone, a bowling-alley proprietor now best remembered as the man who conceived the 24-second shot clock.
''I think he did that because he couldn't stand to watch us with the ball for more than 24 seconds,'' Kerr deadpanned.
The marriage to Betsy produced six children, including Jay -- who sadly passed of meningitis at age 3 in 1960 -- and the happy and grown quintet of Ed, Matt, Bill, Essie and Jim. There also have been no fewer than 12 Kerr grandchildren sprinkled about.
The Nats won the NBA championship in Kerr's rookie season. It was the only title he would be around until Jordan's run began in 1991. What also began in Kerr's rookie season was his then-record consecutive-games streak, which reached 844 through Syracuse, the team's relocation to Philadelphia and a trade to the Baltimore Bullets. It ended for no good reason on a November night in 1965 when coach Paul Seymour -- a former teammate -- simply decided not to put him in.
By that time, a new NBA franchise was being planted in Chicago. Kerr claims his old neighborhood buddy Stinky Fryer and Fryer's brother Reggie began a semifictitious ''petition drive'' to get him hired as the team's first coach. Whatever, something clicked.
From the bench to the mike
With a cast of glad wags featuring Sloan and the amazingly creative Guy Rodgers, that first team finished 33-48 and edged the Pistons for the final playoff spot in the Western Conference. Kerr was named NBA Coach of the Year.
A year later, after endless disputes with managing partner Dick Klein, Kerr left to become the first coach of the Phoenix Suns.
That gig lasted less than two seasons, long enough for the Suns to lose a coin toss and Lew Alcindor to the Milwaukee Bucks. But Kerr then was slotted to be the Suns' radio analyst alongside play-by-play man Rod Hundley. A new path in his basketball journey had begun.
Eventually, he would leave Phoenix for a run as the business manager of the ABA's Virginia Squires, where he helped scout and sign young Julius Erving. Kerr would return to Chicago, toil as the business manager of the Bulls, work briefly as a beer salesman and supplement his daytime activities with a part-time role as the host of wraparound segments of Bulls coverage on WIND-AM.
Finally, one night in 1975, ascending play-by-play man Durham suggested that Kerr be given a microphone so he could add comments during games. A team, a franchise and a town were about to be ushered on a three-decade run through some of the highest peaks and most baffling valleys the NBA could manufacture.
A man in the middle, from Tilden Tech to championship No. 6 to Derrick Rose, has been Johnny Kerr. Revered, honored and proof immortal -- as Roy Rogers and Dale Evans suggested so many paths ago -- that it's how you ride the trail that counts.