When he got his first job as head coach five years ago, Amir Abdur-Rahim did not immediately accept the offer.
His concern wasn’t that Kennesaw State was coming off a 26-loss season, nor that his potential salary wouldn’t be enough. Abdur-Rahim didn’t feel comfortable leaving his job as an assistant coach on Tom Crean’s staff at Georgia without the blessing of the top five recruit he had built a relationship with and helped convince to join to sign the Bulldogs.
“If you need me here, I’ll stay. I’m fine with it,” Abdur-Rahim promised Anthony Edwards when he called the future Minnesota Timberwolves superstar about Kennesaw State’s offer.
It was only after Edwards and everyone else involved in the recruitment told Abdur-Rahim it was too good an opportunity to pass up that he finally accepted the job at Kennesaw State.
“That was a relationship four years in the making,” Abdur-Rahim told the “Coaching Origins” podcast in 2022. “There were people around me who I had real relationships with, who trusted myself and the coaching staff at Georgia and trusted me. to be there. This may not be normal, but it’s just who I am and how I was raised.”
That story resurfaced following Thursday’s heartbreaking news that Abdur-Rahim had died after complications during a medical procedure at a Tampa-area hospital. It epitomizes the type of man and leader the University of South Florida men’s basketball coach was, why he was considered a rising star in his profession, why his death at just 43 is such a horrific loss that labeling it when tragedy isn’t enough. do it justice.
Winfred Jordan, Edwards’ coach at the AAU Atlanta Xpress, first met Abdur-Rahim as a teenager more than two decades ago. Jordan told Yahoo Sports that it is a testament to Abdur-Rahim’s character that he would offer to pass up a head coaching opportunity to keep a promise to a teenager.
“You could really hear the sincerity in his voice when he called to ask us about it,” Jordan said. “It meant a lot to us that he was willing to make that sacrifice. Most people in his position wouldn’t have done that.”
Abdur-Rahim died just 10 days before he was set to open his sophomore season in South Florida with a Nov. 4 game against Florida. He is survived by his wife Arianne, and the couple’s three young children, daughters Laila and Lana, and son Aydin.
“All of us at South Florida Athletics mourn with Coach Abdur-Rahim’s loved ones,” said athletic director Michael Kelly. “He was authentic, driven and his infectious personality captivated all of Bulls Nation.”
In a statement on behalf of the family, older brother Shareef Abdur-Rahim said: “On behalf of my family, I would like to express our gratitude to everyone who has reached out regarding Amir’s passing. Please keep our family in your prayers. As @sunsetAMIR would say: To God be the glory.”
Amir Abdur-Rahim, the fourth eldest of thirteen siblings, came from a basketball family. Shareef was the No. 3 overall pick in the 1996 NBA Draft and played 13 seasons in the league. Amir Abdur-Rahim followed in his older brother’s footsteps, averaging 19.5 points and earning three straight All Southland Conference honors while playing guard for Billy Kennedy at Southeastern Louisiana.
Abdur-Rahim once explained that he decided to dedicate himself to coaching while working as a graduate assistant under Kennedy at Murray State. Players described the goals they wanted to achieve to Abdur-Rahim, but he said “their habits did not match those words.”
It was Abdur-Rahim’s hope that he could “learn life through basketball” and help the players he coached avoid that pitfall. As he once put it, “I just want them to have a good example of what a man looks like, what a leader looks like, what a husband and a father looks like.”
That motivation helped Abdur-Rahim climb the coaching ladder. He started as a first-year assistant coach making $38,000 a year at Murray State and later worked at Georgia Tech, College of Charleston and Texas A&M before spending that lone year under Crean at Georgia and then taking over a program of his own at Kennesaw State. .
In Abdur-Rahim’s first year at Kennesaw State, he had a dismal 1-28 season. He then pulled off a remarkable turnaround, leading the Owls to an Atlantic Sun title and an NCAA tournament berth in his fourth season and pushing third-seeded Xavier to the brink of elimination.
In the locker room after the season-ending 72-67 loss to Xavier, Abdur-Rahim stood in front of a whiteboard with only the words “Love Wins” scrawled in the upper right corner. With tears in his eyes, Abdur-Rahim told his players that they will leave as winners, no matter what is on the scoreboard.
“Guys, we won because you love each other,” Abdur-Rahim said. “We won because you were committed to each other. We won because when times got tough, you didn’t back down.
“These are tears of joy right here,” he added. “I have not been disappointed for a moment.”
The rebuild Abdur-Rahim engineered helped get the attention of bigger programs, as did the passion he showed during a tearful post-game news conference after the Xavier loss. South Florida hired him in March 2023, hoping he could resuscitate a program that hadn’t made the NCAA tournament since 2012 and hadn’t hit .500 in league play since moving to American in 2013 .
At his introductory press conference, Abdur-Rahim offered a glimpse into who he was as a man and coach. He promised that “there will not be a day when you will feel cheated with me as head coach.” He vowed not to be overloaded on the recruiting trail. He promised to hang banners and win national titles as South Florida’s coach.
‘I asked [Kelly]’Are you afraid of heights?’” Abdur-Rahim said that day. “Because one day you’re going to have to climb that ladder to cut down those nets.”
That day came sooner than Kelly – or anyone in South Florida – expected.
In his first season, Abdur-Rahim oversaw a dazzling transformation that led South Florida to a school-record 25 wins, a conference title and an NIT berth. The Bulls also earned the program’s first AP Top 25 ranking and achieved a combined GPA of 3.20 for the 2023-2024 academic year.
The sellout crowds at the Yuengling Center weren’t just a product of the team’s success. Abdur-Rahim generated interest by handing out free ice cream sandwiches or donuts to students, buying rounds of coffee at the campus Starbucks and shaking hands with fans waiting in line in the rain for a game.
Last spring, the name Abdur-Rahim was again linked to larger jobs. Instead, he opted to stay in South Florida and sign an extension through 2030.
“I was so happy for him and so proud of him,” Jordan said. “We had a feeling he was on his way.”
Less than five months later, Abdur-Rahim is gone, a devastating blow to college basketball as a whole and those close to him in particular.
When reached by Yahoo Sports on Thursday evening, Crean and Kennedy both politely declined comment because they were not ready to speak publicly about Abdur-Rahim. Crean, who was with Abdur-Rahim’s family at the hospital at the time, later tweeted: “Knowing and working with Amir was a true honor and gift.”
“Take your kids to school tomorrow,” Crean added. “He liked doing that.”
