U.S. national basketball team head coach Gregg Popovich and assistant Steve Kerr don’t plan to just stick to sports as they prepare their team for the FIBA World Cup.
The first Team USA basketball team of the Donald Trump era is led by two notable critics of the president, with Popovich once calling him a “soulless coward” and Kerr labeling him a “blowhard ill-suited” for office.
On Tuesday, both coaches sounded off on lawmakers for not doing enough about gun control in the aftermath of mass shootings in Gilroy, Calif., El Paso and Dayton.
“It’d be a lot better if the people in power got off their asses and got something done … in a lot of different areas,” Popovich sarcastically told reporters. “I think they’re on vacation right now. They’ll come back and fix the gun situation, the environment, inequality, pay, they’ll fix all that when they come back, I’m sure.”
Kerr, who lost his father to gun violence in his 20s, took a sharper angle with his criticism. The Golden State Warriors coach blasted Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell over Twitter on Monday.
He kept his frustration targeted towards McConnell on Tuesday.
“When you have 97% of the people in the country who want universal background checks and the Senate, not only, not won’t pass it, won’t even vote on it because Mitch McConnell won’t allow them to vote on it because the NRA has bought him off, then you got problems,” Kerr told reporters. “I think that’s the issue. We have to have elected leaders who are willing to value human life over their own jobs and their contributions from the NRA.”
Kerr, a three-time NBA champion coach with the Warriors, played for Popovich as a player with the San Antonio Spurs. He’s been a loud voice on gun violence since his father was assassinated as a diplomat in Lebanon in 1984.
“I think about it all the time. Somebody could walk in the door in the gym right now and start spraying us with an AR-15,” Kerr told The Mercury News. “They could. It might happen because we’re all vulnerable, whether we go to a concert, a church, the mall or go to the movie theater or a school. It’s up to us as Americans to demand change from the gutless leadership that continues to allow this to happen and continues to somehow claim the Second Amendment is doing its job.”
Popovich follows in coach Mike Krzyzewski’s footsteps after three Olympic gold medal wins in the 2008, 2012 and 2018 Games. Both Popovich and Kerr have been so critical of Trump over the last few years in different capacities that it’s inspired “Popovich/Kerr 2020” joking campaign t-shirts.
It’s unclear if Popovich and Kerr will set a mandate for players — and themselves — for how much they address politics in the midst of their gold medal pursuit at the world championships this September and Tokyo Olympics next summer.
Both coaches told reporters Monday their aim is to lead by example representing the country with class while in pursuit of their athletic goals. Kerr told reporters, “we have a chance to do something that’s very unifying.”
And Popovich noted: “We can’t fix the divisiveness in our country. But what we can do is be a great example of how people can come together for a common goal and achieve it. It’s our responsibility to not only become the best team we can be, but it’s the way we conduct ourselves with USA on our shirts. We’re representing a lot of people.”