Cal Sports Report

Shareef Abdur-Rahim Responds to Brother Amir's Shocking Death

Former Cal star Shareef was the older brother of South Florida basketball coach Amir Abdur-Rahim, who had been a candidate for the Cal opening two years ago. Amir died at the age of 43
Jake Curtis|
Amir Abdur-Rahim
Amir Abdur-Rahim | Kareem Elgazzar/The Enquirer / USA TODAY NETWORK

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California Golden Bears

Former Cal and NBA basketball star Shareef Abdur-Rahim responded on Friday via Twitter to Thurday's unexpected death of his younger brother Amir Abdur-Rahim, a rising coaching star who was the head coach at the University of South Florida.

Amir was 43 and died of complications of a medical procedure. He had been a candidate for the Cal head coaching vacancy that was eventually filled by Mark Madsen.

Shareef posted his short but sweet twitter message at about 4 a.m. Friday.

Amir Adur-Rahim became a coaching star when he led Kennesaw State to historic heights. The Owls had never had a winning season until Amir guided them to a 26-9 season and an NCAA tournament berth in the 2023 season. Kennesaw State nearly upset third-seeded Xavier in the first round of the NCAA tournament, holding a 13-point lead with less than 10 minutes remaining before falling 72-67.

That made Amir an attractive coach for high-level basketball schools, and Cal officials interviewed him for the Bears' head coaching vacancy after Mark Fox was fired following the 2022-23 season.

Amir's candidacy at Cal brought optimism to the Golden Bears' community. However, Amir chose to take the job at South Florida instead, and he made an immediate impact there, guiding the Bulls to their best season ever. South Florida had had four consecutive losing seasons before it went 25-8 in Amir Abdur-Rahim's first season n 2023-24.

He was on the fast track to a magnificent coaching career, when he unexpectedly died of complications of a medical procedure.

Shareef Abdur-Rahim is 47, four years older than Amir, and they were among the 13 children born to William Abdur-Rahim. Both Shareef and Amir grew up in Marietta, Georgia, but Shareef opted to attend Cal, where he was the Pac-10 player of the year as a freshman in 1995-96, his only season at Cal.

He went on to a successful 12-year NBA career, and he was a member of the United States' gold-medal-winning Olympic team in 2000.

After he retired from basketball, Shareef returned to Cal, graduating with a degree in sociology in 2012 with a 3.8 GPA.

He is currently the president of the NBA's G League.

Amir Abdur-Rahim posted this optimistic message just three weeks ago:

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Jake Curtis
JAKE CURTIS

Jake Curtis worked in the San Francisco Chronicle sports department for 27 years, covering virtually every sport, including numerous Final Fours, several college football national championship games, an NBA Finals, world championship boxing matches and a World Cup. He was a Cal beat writer for many of those years, and won awards for his feature stories.

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