“I know how the Parkland families feel,” Kerr said, reminding the audience of his own familiar tragedy. At the same time, he downplayed his own celebrity. “I’m here because I’m a citizen of this country and we’re a democracy and when people say stick to sports, stick to coaching, that means nothing.” He would not, in other words, shut up and dribble.
“For the first time, it feels like something's happening,” Kerr said, speaking in the raspy voice basketball fans have come to know as a mainstay of postgame press conferences. Kerr remembered being seven, watching the youth activists protesting the Vietnam War. The activism emerging now, he said, was similar in conviction, if not yet in scope and size. “This is your number one issue,” he said to the starstruck high school students sitting before him.