Wild About '88: Chapter 31: Kerr scorches ASU after pre-game insults.
This season marks the 35th anniversary of one of Tucson’s most beloved teams of all time, the 1987-88 Arizona Wildcats that finished 35-3 and went to the program’s first Final Four. We will celebrate that team by recapping each game during that unforgettable season by referencing newspaper archives and interviews conducted during the making of the upcoming documentary film ‘Wild About ‘88: The Rise of Arizona Basketball.’ (Some interview quotes in this series have been edited for clarity.)
February 24, 1988, at Arizona State.
In 2013, right before Steve Kerr went to Golden State and started winning championships, my brother and I were ecstatic to sit down with the Arizona legend for our film. (The film is in post-production. Please click here for answers to questions pertaining to our journey.)
We had a lot to cover and I was a little uneasy asking Kerr about some personal grief he had gone through in his life, but I knew it was important to tell the story.
I asked him about his father’s assassination in Beirut when Kerr was a freshman at Arizona and later I asked him about the incident in Tempe his senior year when some ASU fans mocked him before the game about the death of his Dad.
This was Kerr’s response.
“The ASU incident happened my freshman year. It didn't happen my senior year.”
After a few moments of conversation, he realized he was mistaken and it did happen his senior year. He still remembered the incident but the specifics of when it happened took some reassurance.
Kerr had played in countless games on the college and pro level at the time of this interview, so forgetting when something happened in the 1980s was not surprising, but it made an impression on me because many of us old-school Arizona fans have this incident filed away in our brains and bring it up frequently.
If you are not familiar with what occurred that night you would not want to remember the specifics of it either.
Before the game, Kerr was openly mocked about his father’s death by some ASU fans in the crowd.
Years later Kerr would call it an “isolated incident”, but that night he was crushed.
These were some of the insults verbally thrown in Kerr’s direction.
“Where’s your Dad?”
“Go back to Beruit!”
“P-L-O!”
“It was a really crazy moment for me because I just couldn’t believe that people actually would be that hateful over a basketball game and a rivalry,” Kerr said.
Arizona center Tom Tolbert was shocked.
“It was the most upset I'd ever been before a basketball game, and Steve was visibly shaken. He was in tears. And I didn't know why until I heard what some of the scumbag fans were chanting at him,” Tolbert said in 2016.
“That was the one time that I really wanted to go into the stands and as the kids say now, go HAM,” Tolbert added. “I wanted to go up there and rip someone's head off.”
Sean Elliott remembers Kerr’s demeanor before the game.
“Steve went to the locker room and he was bright, bright red, bright red. And he came out and just absolutely torched them,” Elliott said in 2015.
12 seconds into the game, Kerr hit his first 3-pointer.
“Steve came out and just drained 3-pointer after 3-pointer. We ran some special plays for him to get his 3-pointers,” Lute Olson said in 2010.
The sharpshooter would score 20 points in the first half including six 3-pointers. He was a perfect 7 for 7 from the field in the first half.
“Steve is good at motivating himself and he came out the first half and just like a laser, every shot was going right in,” Craig McMillan said in 2016.
Kerr finished with 22 points and when the game ended he was shooting 65% from behind the arc in conference games. He played 32 minutes with no turnovers and no fouls, the sixth time he had accomplished that during the season.
Anthony Cook was also on fire adding 18 points, and shooting 8 for 8 from the field.
The Wildcats shot 68% for the game and easily defeated the school up North 101-73.
On the court after the game, Kerr addressed the pre-game fan issue.
“I know it was a real select few, and some other (ASU) fans came up and apologized, but there’s no place for that,” Kerr said.1
The Arizona fans traveled in droves to the game in Tempe and it got under the skin of ASU center Mark Becker.
“It’s pretty bad because they beat us bad again. All you can hear at the end of the game is their fans chanting ‘U of A’—and it’s our place. That’s the worst,” Becker said.2
Next Up: March 3, 1988, vs. Washington State.
Blog content and original interview quotations © Waterfoot Films 2023.
Jay Gonzales, "‘Fired Up’ UA defeats ASU by 28 points,” The Arizona Daily Star, February 28 1988, Section E—Page One and Two.; Greg Hansen, '“UA win was by the numbers,” The Arizona Daily Star, February 28 1988, Section E—Page One and Two.; Memories ‘88, Dana Cooper.; Jack Rickard, “Some jeering section", The Tucson Citizen, February 29 1988, Section B—Page One and Three.
Jay Gonzales, "‘Fired Up’ UA defeats ASU by 28 points,” The Arizona Daily Star, February 28 1988, Section E—Page One.
Greg Hansen, '“UA win was by the numbers,” The Arizona Daily Star, February 28 1988, Section E—Page Two.