Golden State Warriors head coach Steve Kerr had quite the eventful summer. He coached the Team USA men’s basketball team to a gold medal with a few clutch comebacks in the process. After that, he used his voice for his country in another way.
Kerr joined Tim Kawakami of the Audacy Sports Podcast “The TK Show” and talked about his speech at the Democratic National Convention (DNC) in August and using Steph Curry’s classic “night night” move on Former President Donald Trump.
“I would say maybe three days after the gold medal game, the day I got back to San Diego I had an email inviting me to speak. It was from Vice President Harris’ campaign manager,” he recalled. “So I gave it a lot of thought. I told her I needed a couple of days to hash it out. I spoke with some people I respect and wanted to make sure I knew what I was getting into.
“And then ultimately just made the decision that ‘Hey, they asked me to do it, I feel strongly about her winning the election, I think it’s important for our country, and I should do it.’ So yeah, I went for it and it was almost surreal, a little intimidating.”
While Kerr has felt the pressure from the NBA media in his days, it’s not the same when it’s on a national – or international – stage.
“I definitely felt like a fish out of water but I’m glad I did it. They helped me a lot with it,” he said. “The preparation was great. We did a walkthrough the night before and a rehearsal. We tweaked the speech here and there and then ultimately I thought it went over pretty well and I’m glad I did it. But also glad I’m not doing it again,” Kerr laughed.
Kerr told Kawakami that a speechwriter worked with him for several days to iron out the kinks and tweak it to the final version that he delivered.
“Ultimately, got it to a place where I was pretty comfortable with it. The teleprompters were amazing. The glass ones that are on either side of you. I could not believe the clarity of how easy it was,’ he said. “It makes it look like you’re actually looking side to side and speaking to everyone but you’re really just reading off the teleprompter so those things are genius.
“Mostly I got good feedback. I did get a few nasty emails, but that’s to be expected, and that’s OK. It’s all part of it. Like I said, I’m glad I did it and I do think it’s a very important election. I am very hopeful that Vice President Harris will win but we’ll see.”
The importance of the moment and the massive audience watching the DNC, including a decent portion who likely had no idea who Kerr was, crept into his head during the speech.
“They told me to try to look dead in the camera. That’s where the main teleprompter is and then occasionally turn side to side. So every time I looked in the main camera that thought did come into my mind like ‘Hey, there might be 50 million people watching this right now,’” he said. “So you try to put that out of your mind and just stay with the script and get through it. I was able to do that.”
Kerr has made his voice known on several hot-button issues over the years. While he’s dipped his toes into the political waters, he’s not planning on diving in at all.
“I’m always going to use my voice, use my platform to try to help further. The campaign on whether it’s an issue like gun violence provention, which I work on all the time, or an election like this one that I feel strongly about. I feel like I’ll always do that,” he shared. “I don’t think I’ll ever run for office.
“I love what I do and this is what I do. This is my entire career has been in sports. I can’t imagine. I wouldn’t even know the first place to start running for office at any level. It doesn’t really appeal to me. I like being part of the democracy and part of the process but that’s about it.”
Of course, one of the most iconic moments from Kerr’s speech was Steph Curry’s “night night” celebration. The Warriors superstar enjoyed watching his coach on the national stage.
“I texted him. He was in Hawaii right after Paris he went to Hawaii with his family. I texted him and I said ‘Hey, this is what I’m planning on doing. If I don’t hear back from you, and I hope I don’t because you should be in Hawaii not listening to your coach, but if I don’t hear back from you I’m going to do this,’” Kerr recalled. “I didn’t hear back from him and so I just did it, I knew he wouldn’t mind.
“And then the night I did it I got a great text from him thanking me for my leadership but also loving the night night. I think he got a kick out of it.”
Kerr and Curry are now focusing on the season ahead with the Golden State Warriors opening game just a month away.