Amir Abdur-Rahim Passes Away At 43
What a loss.
You never really know about life. Things can be going along swimmingly and then anything can happen. Most of the time, you just get up and trudge through the next day but some people get up and win the lottery. Other people have terrible fates like 9/11. Some people work hard and do everything right and just have bad luck. And some people have immense promise and life cuts them down.
Which is what happened to South Florida’s head coach Amir Abdur-Rahim, who passed away Wednesday during a medical procedure.
His run at Kennesaw State sure caught our attention. He took over a ramshackle program to be kind. In his first season, KSU went just 1-28.
In his second year, the Owls went 5-19, and in his third, 13-18. And in his final season there, KSU finished 26-9, made the NCAA tournament for the first time and nearly upset Xavier.
He proved himself there, we thought, and we also thought he deserved a shot at the Georgia Tech job. In fact, we were pulling for him to get it. He has deep Georgia roots and would have recruited the state very well and would have been a major asset for the ACC.
That didn't happen of course and he took the USF job. It’s not a bad job and was definitely a step up from Kennesaw State, but it was a surprising choice. We thought he was ready for a bigger opportunity.
Still, he ran up a 25-8 first season and gave every indication that he was a rising star.
Then this.
It doesn’t make any sense. He was just 43. He was talented, charismatic. He touched a lot of lives and was inspirational to many.
And now, just like that, he’s gone.
It doesn’t make sense in any way, but perhaps the lesson to draw from this is that we should all relish life today. There are no guarantees for tomorrow.
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