NO MATTER WHERE he goes, former NBA All-Star Shareef Abdur-Rahim is reminded of his brother’s influence.
Whether or not it is of their hometown of Marietta, Georgia, or so far as 8,000 miles away from the place they grew up, it appears everybody has a narrative about how Amir Abdur-Rahim touched their lives.
“Some man got here as much as me [in China],” Shareef Abdur-Rahim, president of the NBA’s G League, instructed ESPN. “I did not know him. He did not know me. He was like, ‘I knew your brother, man. He was one of the best.’ What number of occasions I’ve gotten that over this yr is unbelievable.”
Amir Abdur-Rahim was simply 43 years outdated and a rising star within the school basketball teaching ranks when he died one yr in the past Friday throughout a medical process for an undisclosed sickness.
Within the one year since, the tributes have poured in from gamers, coaches and followers all throughout the globe. Abdur-Rahim was an completed coach. He took Kennesaw State from a 1-28 report in his first season in 2019 to the NCAA event in 2023. And in his solely season at South Florida, he guided the Bulls to the American Convention’s regular-season title.
However when folks bear in mind Abdur-Rahim now, most of the time, these tales have little to do with basketball. He was a husband, a father, a brother to 12 — and a connector who cared extra about relationships than victories.
“HOW ARE YOU?”
Abdur-Rahim’s spouse, Arianne Abdur-Rahim, shakes her head when she hears this query — she is aware of folks hardly ever ask it with the intent to kind a real connection the way in which her husband would.
“Most individuals simply say, ‘Hey, how are you doing? How’s it going right now?’ they usually’re probably not ready for a response,” she instructed ESPN. “They only need you to say, ‘I am good.’ And all people goes their separate methods. That is not him. He actually needed to know the reply. He was actually invested on this reply and simply needed to make folks really feel seen and really feel higher.
“He had this inherent potential to make you’re feeling seen, to make you’re feeling heard, to make you’re feeling empowered.”
That was the South Florida neighborhood’s expertise with Abdur-Rahim. Somebody’s function on the faculty did not matter — he made an effort to construct relationships with everybody he encountered. He purchased Starbucks and donuts for college students on campus. And after his introductory information convention in 2023, he known as a gathering … with the pinnacle of the coed part.
Abdur-Rahim’s relationship with the Bulls’ soccer coach Alex Golesh was no completely different. Employed inside months of one another, the 2 discovered commonalities not solely in the way in which they needed to educate, however the way in which they needed to be nice fathers.
Golesh — who honored Abdur-Rahim together with his patented phrase “this ain’t the identical South Florida, my brother” after upset wins over AP High 25 groups Boise State and Florida to open this yr — mentioned Abdur-Rahim helped him keep the course after a tough begin to the 2024 season, providing him a sport plan for the highway forward as they supported one another.
“It was similar to these texts like, ‘Man, that is what 12 months 1 goes to be, 12 months 2, 12 months 3, 12 months 4,'” Golesh instructed ESPN. “After which we simply acquired nearer and nearer.”
USF coach Alex Golesh after upsetting Boise State:
“I am gonna quote one of many best human beings I’ve ever been round… Amir Abdur-Rahim mentioned, ‘This ain’t the identical outdated South Florida'” 🙏👏pic.twitter.com/3DvIUst4yI
— The Discipline of 68 (@TheFieldOf68) August 29, 2025
In tough occasions, Abdur-Rahim remained devoted to studying his self-help books and scribbling notes about his visions for the long run, sharing these goals with the folks round him — even once they appeared unattainable.
His confidence, in all circumstances, emboldened others. How he made them really feel is core to his legacy.
“He needed to be higher at every thing he did,” mentioned Joi Williams, Abdur-Rahim’s pal and chief of employees at South Florida. “He needed to be one of the best and he needed to ensure that our guys knew how a lot he liked them. And that was one thing he instructed them.
“At first, a few of these guys checked out him like, ‘You are loopy. I am not saying it again.’ However what was actually wonderful, and I get emotional about it, is that when it acquired right down to the tip, you possibly can see how a lot they have been telling him, ‘I really like you.’ And so they’re not afraid to say the phrase ‘love’ as a result of he mentioned it on a regular basis.”
After leaving Kennesaw State, Abdur-Rahim known as Williams and instructed the then-coach of Murray State’s ladies’s basketball group that he would name her as soon as he landed his subsequent job. She did not consider him till he provided her the function of chief of employees, a uncommon project for a lady in males’s school basketball.
“We at all times talked about and joked about working collectively,” Williams mentioned. “I mentioned, ‘Yeah, quite a lot of you guys say that, however are you actually going to rent a feminine?’ And he was like, ‘I am telling you. I will do it.'”
As a lot as he confirmed up for others, the power of Abdur-Rahim’s connections additionally meant he would disappear generally.
Ben Fletcher, his former assistant who succeeded him as interim head coach at South Florida, found that when Abdur-Rahim would out of the blue go away round lunchtime once they have been at Kennesaw State collectively, he’d often find yourself at a mom-and-pop restaurant. He had a Rolodex of small-town spots and knew the names of their homeowners. He additionally knew one of the best merchandise on every of their menus. For years, Fletcher hinted that he needed to hitch him and felt like he’d hit the lottery when Abdur-Rahim lastly agreed to take him to one among his favourite joints.
It was a number of the finest soul meals Fletcher ever had.
“I am like, ‘Man, I have been right here for 2 years and I am simply now studying the place this place is?'” Fletcher mentioned. “I instructed him, ‘See, that is fallacious. You fallacious for that.'”
As centered as Abdur-Rahim was, he did not take himself too severely.
His younger gamers at South Florida would usually poke their coach to get an increase out of him. And it did not take a lot. In the event that they instructed him LeBron James was the best participant of all time, the Michael Jordan fan would by no means let it slide.
“He would at all times convey up LeBron shedding within the NBA Finals,” mentioned Kobe Knox, who performed for Abdur-Rahim at South Florida. “And I’d ship him slightly graphic about LeBron and his success and the following time I’d see him on the facility, he’d be like, ‘Man, why are you sending me that? I ain’t being attentive to that.'”
These moments helped Abdur-Rahim earn the locker room’s adoration, however he might promote his gamers solely on potential at first — South Florida had by no means gained a convention championship getting into the 2023-24 season and hadn’t reached the NCAA event in additional than a decade.
Abdur-Rahim, nevertheless, did not need his gamers to consider the previous. He needed them to consider sooner or later, so he introduced a ladder and pair of scissors to follow in the future. Months earlier than his group made historical past as the primary South Florida males’s basketball group to win a convention title, he ready the gamers in a singular occasion with a net-cutting walkthrough.
“He completely believed it,” Williams mentioned. “Now, clearly, we have been up within the hunt for a convention title on the time, however he needed them to know find out how to do it. He mentioned, ‘I do not need you guys to simply stand up on the ladder. We wish to present you the way the online is meant to be reduce.’ And we truly did it. I imply all people — coaches, the gamers, all of the help employees — all people that was going to stand up on that ladder, we did it.”
GOLESH WOULD OFTEN joke with Abdur-Rahim that basketball coaches had extra time on their arms than soccer coaches — jabs pushed by jealousy and admiration.
“I mentioned, ‘Amir, I see you are taking your youngsters to highschool. I can not take my youngsters to highschool. I am struggling. It is killing me. Matter of reality, my child will see you drop your youngsters off,'” Golesh mentioned. “My son, who is identical age as his daughter, is asking me, ‘Dad, why cannot you’re taking me to highschool?’ And in order that’s why I say [our relationship] is a lot deeper than simply, ‘Are you enjoying zone or man?'”
The conversations, textual content messages and laughs abruptly stopped practically a yr in the past. Many individuals inside Abdur-Rahim’s circle didn’t learn about his sickness, and his optimistic reactions revealed little about his scenario.
“I texted him like, ‘Hey bro, every thing good?'” Golesh mentioned. “He would reply, ‘Every part is nice.’ OK. Our first sport, he wasn’t there. So, I texted him. ‘Amir, you good?’ He texted me again. ‘Man, I am nice.'”
His gamers obtained related messages. At the same time as they knew he was struggling, Abdur-Rahim continued to educate and nudge them within the ultimate weeks of his life, telling them what they wanted to work on and the drive required to construct on their earlier season and earn an NCAA event bid.
“He was so vigorous nonetheless, despite the fact that he was coping with all of that, and he was nonetheless joking round,” Knox mentioned. “We had follow and he would sit on the sideline and he was nonetheless teaching us.”
His dying despatched shock waves by means of South Florida and school basketball which are nonetheless rippling.
The Bulls’ pupil part was renamed the “Amir Abdur-Rahim Pupil Part.” The college inducted him into its Corridor of Fame. And the American Convention made him honorary Coach of the 12 months — an award he gained in 2024 — final season, too.
His religion, his love for others, his concern for his gamers, his spouse mentioned, have been at all times the driving forces in his life and the explanations so many individuals have reached out since he handed.
“I need folks to recollect his legacy having to do with — it is simply one thing I inform the youngsters on a regular basis — integrity,” she mentioned. “And it sounds so cliché, but additionally simply making an attempt to be an excellent particular person and making an attempt to assist different folks.”
The tales Arianne and Shareef Abdur-Rahim have heard since shedding him have saved his reminiscence alive. And like in China, they usually come from shocking locations.
At Abdur-Rahim’s South Florida Corridor of Fame ceremony, Shareef thanked everybody who attended. Within the nook of the constructing, he seen three younger males who did not appear to know anybody else within the room — former South Florida gamers who had by no means performed for his brother, however obtained that relationship-building that Abdur-Rahim will probably be remembered for.
“Everyone needs an extended life,” Shareef Abdur-Rahim mentioned. “You need longevity, however to have the ability to have an effect is the aim. He had an influence, an influence on folks, how he made folks really feel. You will have those who reside 100 years and are not ready to try this.”