Excerpt from San Antonio Express-News
By Buck Harvey

Steve Kerr watches TV as everyone does, but he sees more. He can still see Beirut, the city where he was born and the city where his father was gunned down by terrorists. He can still see the fumes of his anger, as well as the fumes of others today. And he can still see his father's funeral.

Then, hundreds of Arabic friends with tears on their faces grieved with him, telling him it was the worst thing that had ever happened. That's what the visions of fireballs do to him today. He sees loss, but he sees it through tested eyes.

Kerr heads for Portland in a few weeks. Until then he will drive his kids to school in San Antonio, where they will stay with their mom at least through the semester. He planned on savoring every moment, but he never knew how much. Now when he clicks on the remote, emotions click on as quickly.

"My first thought is how much pain the victims' family members are in for," Kerr said. "Not just for the next few days, but for a lifetime. You can think you know what these people feel. But it doesn't really hit you hard unless you know exactly what it feels like."

He knows exactly. He was at the University of Arizona in 1984 when the phone rang in his dorm room. Malcolm Kerr, his father, and the president of American University in Beirut, had been assassinated. Kerr felt the rage so many feel today. "But the problem then is similar to what is happening now. We want revenge, but against who? We want someone to be accountable, but it's an invisible enemy."

Invisible, yet familiar. Kerr's ties to the Middle East are deep. His grandparents were missionaries who ended up in Beirut. His father was born there, went to school there, met Kerr's mother there. His father taught around the world, from the south of France to Oxford. Malcolm was on the faculty at UCLA when Steve fell in love with basketball as the Bruins' ballboy.

But his father's passion was elsewhere. Malcolm spoke fluent Arabic and took his family to live in Tunisia and Cairo. In Egypt, a teen-age Steve played ball on rocky courts and embraced it.

"My family has a love for the region and its people," Kerr said. "And from my perspective, that's another painful part of this week's terrorist attacks. Over 99.9 percent of the Muslims are completely disgusted with what happened. There are wackos out there. But some are American, some are French. Blaming all Arabic people is like blaming Americans for Timothy McVeigh."

He says this having lived it. Once, visiting his father in Beirut, an attack closed the airport. Steve retreated to the U.S. Embassy, and two days later a driver took him on a scary, eight-hour ride through Syria to Jordan. From there Kerr flew to Arizona to start his college career. Shortly after, he learned his driver had been killed by sniper fire.

Then came news of his father, and Kerr went through what the families of this week's victims go through. He also had to make his own decision whether to play in a game in the wake, and Kerr didn't hesitate. He played. "It was the only thing to do," he said.

He felt the bitterness that America feels now. But he continued: "You have to consider the political landscape. The Number one question we should all have, is why do people hate us? Why is there a faction of people in the world so against what we stand for?"