By Bob Markus

One of the most amazing coincidences in all of recorded history is the fact that on July 4, 1826, on the 50th anniversary of the birth of our nation, founding fathers John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, the second and third presidents of the United States, both died. There were no internet web sites to flash the news to the world. In fact the only web sites in those days were in the corners of basements where spiders loomed. There was no television, no radio, no telegraph, no means of quickly spreading the news to the farthest reaches of the land. It was likely weeks before a farmer in Missouri learned of the unlikely occurrence.

Apparently times haven't changed as much as I had supposed. It was a full week after the deaths of Johnny Kerr and Norm Van Lier, two Chicago Bulls icons as unlike in appearance and style as Adams and Jefferson were in their political beliefs, that I read about it in Sports Illustrated. How could this happen? I read the sports pages of the South Florida News every day. I watch Sports Center, not every night, but often. But somehow this jarring news got past me. I was shocked. Two men whom I had known well, admired for different reasons, had a beer with occasionally, were gone and for a week I had been unaware of it.

As a native Chicagoan, I was aware of Johnny Kerr from the moment he began playing basketball at Tilden Tech in his senior year. A scrawny 6-9, having grown eight inches in a year, he was all knobby knees and elbows--and a powerful force on a basketball court in an era when most high school seniors were 6-4 or 6-5, tops. I was in high school myself at the time and a big fan of high school sports. I had not seen Kerr play, but had read about him and his sidekick, George Macuga, a foot shorter, who led Tilden to the city championship and a rare, for a Chicago team, first round victory in the Sweet 16.

He became locally famous when he helped lead Illinois to a Final Four in 1952, and nationally known as a hard-working center for the Syracuse Nationals in the NBA. By then his lanky frame had filled out and he was a tough as nails post man for the Nats, who, in his rookie year, won their first NBA title. One of the best passing centers in the game, Kerr averaged 13.8 points and 11.2 rebounds over a dozen years in a career that ended in 1966. He played in 844 consecutive games in one stretch, a league record that wasn't broken until 1983. He should have been in the basketball Hall of Fame long ago and may make it posthumously. Just days before his death he was announced as one of 16 candidates for the Naismith Memorial Basketball of Fame.

I first met Johnny when he was named head coach of the Bulls in their inaugural season of 1966-67. The most memorable thing about Kerr as a coach was his habit of slinging a large bath towel over his shoulder while sitting on the bench. In moments of great excitement he would give the floor a mighty whack with the end of the towel. The NBA soon banned the bath towel. As a coach, Kerr never had a winning record, but he coached the Bulls into the playoffs in their first season and for that feat was named Coach of the Year.

I remember that once, early in his tenure, the Bulls had a particularly bad road trip and I wrote a column suggesting to Bulls fans that now was the time to support their teamm and they could do so by meeting the team plane at O'Hare Field at 6 the next morning. Naturally, I thought it was my duty to be first in line to greet the players as they stumbled half asleep off their plane. I think there may have been a dozen fans, including a small jazz combo, who showed up. The whole thing was done tongue-in-cheek, of course, something the bewildered players did not know, but Johnny Kerr surely did. He never held it against me.

After two years with the Bulls, Kerr went with fellow Illini Jerry Colangelo to become the expansion Phoenix Suns first coach. Colangelo had been the Bulls ticket manager and he and I often sat around at night over a few drinks, talking basketball, Jerry dreaming of being a general manager, a dream that came true when he was picked to be the Suns general manager. Colangelo, by the way, was a dynamite outside shooter and one night in Phoenix after a game he took off his suit jacket and challenged Suns guard Gail Goodrich to a half court shootout. He held his own, too.

Kerr lasted only a season and a half in Phoenix, before coming home and putting down roots. He became the TV voice of the Bulls and one of the most beloved sports figures in Chicago.

Norm Van Lier was another story and, in a way, a more interesting story. An original third round draft choice of the Bulls, he was traded to the Cincinnati Royals before ever signing a contract. After three years in Cincinnati, having been the NBA assists leader in 1971, he was traded back to Chicago. There he teamed with Jerry Sloan to become the meanest guard combo ever put together. The two of them led the league in floor burns and charges taken and, not incidentally, played some marvelous two-way basketball. Coached by Dick Motta, they were part of a team that, to my mind, played the game the way it should be played. Motta was a firebrand of a coach, whose intensity level ran white hot. Van Lier bought into Motta's notion that the Bulls were alone in the world, that everyone in the NBA was out to get them, particularly the referees. Later in his career it caused Van Lier some problems. His nickname, Stormin' Norman, was well earned.

I probably knew Norm a little better than I knew Johnny Kerr, although we never traveled in the same circles. My wife and I did meet Norm's wife at a restaurant opening and invited the two of them to dinner at our house. Norm turned up an hour late, alone, and obviously stoned. But we still had a fun evening. Norm was the kind of guy who says what's on his mind and, recently, that got him in trouble with the Bulls, for whom he was a TV analyst. Shortly before his death, after the talented but underachieving team had blown yet another late lead, he held up what he said was a mustard seed and said, "This is a mustard seed. Your heart is as big as a mustard seed. You have no heart."

That did not sit well with Bulls brass and when Kerr was honored by the team with a halftime ceremony and the unveiling of a statue, Van Lier was not invited to be a part of the special evening. Too bad. For all their differences, Johnny and Norm had much in common, including the fact that they both loved the Bulls. Unhappily, the one you love does not always love you back.