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Brian Windhorst, ESPN Senior Editor
ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — Calling it a “horrible” and “demoralizing” day for our country, U.S. coach Steve Kerr tried to sum up the emotions of his team Sunday as they were on the other side of the world representing the country following the assassination of former President Donald Trump.
“It’s a moment where we feel so proud to represent our country, to wear the USA jersey on our chest, to be in the Olympics,” Kerr said. “We talked to the players about how important it is to be the best version of ourselves as human beings, to represent our country in a respectful and dignified way. It makes you want to do it even more, because it’s embarrassing for us to sit here and think about what happened and what’s going on in our country.”
Kerr, whose father Malcolm was assassinated in 1984 in Beirut, Lebanon, has a long history of criticizing gun violence.
“This is a demoralizing day for our country, and this is another example of not only our political division, but also our gun culture,” Kerr said. “A 20-year-old with an AR-15 trying to shoot a former president. It’s hard to process, and it’s scary to think about where this is going because of the problems that already exist in the country. So this is a terrible day.
“Thank God Trump didn’t get hit, but this is really disheartening in every way.”
Early Sunday morning, FBI has identified the shooting suspect. The suspect is Thomas Matthew Crooks, 20. In a statement, the FBI said “this remains an active and ongoing investigation.”
Players and coaches learned about the incident in Butler, Pennsylvania, when they woke up to the news on Sunday morning.
“Obviously it’s a very sad time in general. All the conversations around the election and the political situation in our country, and then you have a situation like this, it just brings up a lot of emotions around the things that we need to fix as a nation,” the Team USA star said. Stephen Curry speak.
“Obviously gun control is first and foremost, because the fact that someone could even carry out such an attack is a possibility. But more importantly, you want [see] positivity and hope. It sounds cheesy, but it’s true. That’s when our country is at its best and it just adds a stain to what’s going on. Sad is the word for it.”
The U.S. team was addressed by U.S. Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates Martina Strong at a pre-scheduled event on Sunday. The team will remain in the Middle East this week before playing Olympic preparation matches against Australia on Monday and Serbia on Wednesday.
“Obviously what we’re doing is very mundane, just playing basketball, but we want to do our best to try to show people what our country can be,” Kerr said. “And then you hear something like this and it’s disheartening and obviously very sad.”
