My wife and I were trying to remember and came up blank. My guess is that it happened in the 1980s. We’re thinking that he might have played for Arizona. Thanks to anyone with a better memory or google ability.
Steve Kerr.
Went on to a halfway decent NBA career and is now in coaching.
I remember when Arizona played at Duke (only a year or so after the tragedy IIRC) and Duke’s infamous Cameron Crazies started chanting “PLO! PLO!”
As if there weren’t enough reasons for a basketball fan to hate Duke. :mad:
Thanks. Eight minutes…love this board.
My only function on this board, aside from inane questions and unhelpful wisecracks, is to fill two gaping holes in the collective SDMB knowledge base: sports trivia and electric guitars.
Neddless to say I’m not called on very often. Glad to help. 
:mad: yourself. It was ASU, NOT Duke. http://www.planetdouglas.com/article.php?story=2004090718493239 --see #4.
I stand completely corrected. I apologize to you on general principle, and specifically if you are a Duke alum. I’m not sure why I thought it was Duke. OK, I know why I thought it was Duke, but that doesn’t make it OK.
It’s cool–my husband is a Duke alum, so obviously he felt this needed to be cleared up.
In fairness, though, 1984 was the same year the Crazies crossed the line with obscene chants and bad behavior (prompting then-President Terry Sanford’s “Avuncular Letter”), so it’s not surprising that you could get that conflated with the Kerr incident.
I don’t know if he is coaching or not. He is a basketball talking head for TNT. Cite . He’s very quick witted.
Actually, Malcolm Kerr was assassinated in 1984 while he was president of the American University of Beirut (where I teach). So it was more than just a kidnaping.
As a quibble, I’d say Kerr’s career was more than halfway decent. He’s the NBA’s single-season and all-time leader in three point field goal percentage, and he was part of four championship teams. I’d never heard about this tragedy before, though.
(quibble turns into total hijack)
That’s just the way I talk/write. When I say “halfway decent,” I mean good. He was definitely a good player but no Hall of Famer. And while Kerr certainly deserves credit for sinking the open looks (it ain’t easy), Michael Jordan tended to make great, or better, three point shooters out of his backcourt mates. (John Paxson, anyone?)
Steve Kerr was a good player. 
[/hijack]