IT DOESN'T MATTER WHERE As he says, former NBA All-Star Shareef Abdur-Rahim remembers his brother's impact.
Whether in their hometown of Marietta, Georgia, or up to 8,000 miles away from where they grew up, it seems like everyone has a story about how Amir Abdur-Rahim influenced their lives.
“A guy approached me [in China]”Shareef Abdur-Rahim, president of the NBA G League, told ESPN. “I didn't know him. He didn't know me. He said, 'I knew your brother, man.' He was the best.' “It's amazing how many times that has happened to me this year.”
Amir Abdur-Rahim was just 43 years old and a rising star in the ranks of college basketball coaches when he died a year ago Friday during a medical procedure for an undisclosed illness.
In the 365 days since, tributes have poured in from players, coaches and fans around the world. Abdur-Rahim was an accomplished coach. He led Kennesaw State from a 1-28 record in his first season in 2019 to the NCAA tournament in 2023. And in his only season in South Florida, he guided the Bulls to the AFC regular-season title.
But when people remember Abdur-Rahim now, more often than not, those stories have little to do with basketball. He was a husband, father, brother to 12 people, and a connector who cared more about relationships than victories.
“HOW ARE YOU?”
Abdur-Rahim's wife, Arianne Abdur-Rahim, shakes her head when she hears this question; She knows that people rarely do it with the intention of forming a genuine connection like her husband would.
“Most people just say, 'Hey, how are you? How's it going today?' and they're not really waiting for a response,” he told ESPN. “They just want you to say, 'I'm fine.' And everyone goes their own way. That's not him. I really wanted to know the answer. I was really interested in this answer and I just wanted to make people feel seen and better.
“He had this inherent ability to make you feel seen, to make you feel heard, to make you feel empowered.”
That was the South Florida community's experience with Abdur-Rahim. Someone's role in school didn't matter: he made an effort to build relationships with everyone he encountered. He bought Starbucks and donuts for the students on campus. And after his introductory press conference in 2023, he called a meeting… with the head of the student section.
Abdur-Rahim's relationship with Bulls football coach Alex Golesh was no different. Hired within months of each other, the two found common ground not only in the way they wanted to train, but also in the way they wanted to be great dads.
Golesh, who honored Abdur-Rahim with his patented “this ain't the same South Florida, my brother” line after upset wins over AP Top 25 teams Boise State and Florida in this year's opener, said Abdur-Rahim helped him stay the course after a rocky start to the 2024 season, offering him a game plan for the road ahead as they supported each other. each other.
“It was like those text messages like, 'Man, this is what Year 1, Year 2, Year 3, Year 4 is going to be,'” Golesh told ESPN. “And then we got closer and closer.”
USF coach Alex Golesh after defeating Boise State:
“I'm going to quote one of the greatest human beings I've ever met… Amir Abdur-Rahim said, 'This is not the same old South Florida.'” 🙏👏pic.twitter.com/3DvIUst4yI
— The Field of 68 (@TheFieldOf68) August 29, 2025
Through difficult times, Abdur-Rahim remained dedicated to reading his self-help books and scribbling notes about his visions for the future, sharing those dreams with the people around him, even when they seemed unattainable.
His confidence, in all circumstances, emboldened others. How he made them feel is central to his legacy.
“He wanted to be better at everything he did,” said Joi Williams, Abdur-Rahim's friend and South Florida's chief of staff. “He wanted to be the best and he wanted to make sure our guys knew how much he loved them. And that was something he told them.
“At first, some of those guys looked at him like, 'You're crazy. I'm not going to tell you.' But what was really surprising, and I get emotional, is that when it came to the end, you could see how much they were saying, 'I love you.' And they're not afraid to say the word 'love' because he said it all the time.”
After leaving Kennesaw State, Abdur-Rahim called Williams and told the then-Murray State women's basketball team coach that he would call her once he got his next job. She didn't believe him until he offered her the position of chief of staff, a rare assignment for a woman in men's college basketball.
“We always talk and joke about working together,” Williams said. “I said, 'Yes, a lot of you say that, but are you really going to hire a woman?' And he said to me: 'I'm telling you.' I'm going to do it.”
As much as he appeared to others, the strength of Abdur-Rahim's connections also meant that he sometimes disappeared.
Ben Fletcher, his former assistant who succeeded him as interim head coach at South Florida, found that when Abdur-Rahim left suddenly around lunchtime when they were together at Kennesaw State, he usually ended up at a family restaurant. He had a Rolodex of small town places and knew the names of their owners. He also knew which was the best dish on each of his menus. For years, Fletcher hinted that he wanted to join him and felt like he had won the lottery when Abdur-Rahim finally agreed to take him to one of his favorite venues.
It was some of the best soul food Fletcher has ever had.
“I was like, 'Man, I've been here for two years and I'm just now learning where this place is,'” Fletcher said. “I said, 'Look, that's wrong. You're wrong about that.'”
As focused as Abdur-Rahim was, he didn't take himself too seriously.
His young players in South Florida often hit their coach to annoy him. And it didn't take much. If told that LeBron James is the greatest player of all time, the Michael Jordan fan would never pass it up.
“He always brought up LeBron's loss in the NBA Finals,” said Kobe Knox, who played for Abdur-Rahim at South Florida. “And I'd send him a little graphic about LeBron and his success and the next time I'd see him in the facility, he'd be like, 'Man, why are you sending me that? I'm not paying attention to that.'”
Those moments helped Abdur-Rahim earn the adoration of the locker room, but at first he could only sell his players on their potential: South Florida had never won a conference championship entering the 2023-24 season and had not reached the NCAA tournament in more than a decade.
Abdur-Rahim, however, did not want his players to think about the past. He wanted them to believe in the future, so one day he brought a ladder and some scissors to practice. Months before his team made history as the first South Florida men's basketball team to win a conference title, he prepared the players in a unique event with a cutting course.
“He absolutely believed it,” Williams said. “Now, obviously, we were going for a conference title at the time, but he wanted them to know how to do it. He said, 'I don't want you guys to just climb the ladder. We want to show you how the net is supposed to be cut.' And we really did it. I mean everyone (coaches, players, all the support staff), everyone who was going to climb that ladder, we did it.”
GOLESH OFTEN I joked with Abdur-Rahim that basketball coaches had more free time than football coaches – jabs fueled by jealousy and admiration.
“I told him, 'Amir, I see you are going to take your kids to school. I can't take my kids to school. I'm struggling. It's killing me. In fact, my son will see you drop off your kids,'” Golesh said. “My son, who is the same age as his daughter, asks me, 'Dad, why can't you take me to school?' And that's why I say [our relationship] It's a lot deeper than just, 'Are you playing zone or man?'”
The conversations, texts, and laughter stopped abruptly almost a year ago. Many people within Abdur-Rahim's circle were unaware of his illness, and their optimistic reactions revealed little about his situation.
“I texted him like, 'Hey bro, everything okay?'” Golesh said. “He was like, 'Everything's great.' He's fine. Our first game, he wasn't there. So I texted him. 'Amir, are you okay?' He replied to my text message. 'Man, I'm cool.'”
His players received similar messages. Even when they knew he was struggling, Abdur-Rahim continued to coach and push them in the final weeks of his life, telling them what they needed to work on and the drive needed to build on their previous season and earn a bid to the NCAA tournament.
“He was still so full of life, even though he was dealing with all that and he was still joking around,” Knox said. “We would have practice and he would sit on the bench and still coach us.”
His death sent shockwaves through South Florida and college basketball that are still being felt.
The Bulls' student section was renamed the “Amir Abdur-Rahim Student Section”. The school inducted him into its Hall of Fame. And the AFC also named him honorary Coach of the Year, an award he won in 2024 last season.
His faith, his love for others, his concern for his players, his wife said, were always the driving forces of his life and the reasons why so many people have reached out to him since his passing.
“I want people to remember that your legacy is about — it's something I tell kids all the time — integrity,” he said. “And it sounds very cliché, but also trying to be a good person and trying to help other people.”
The stories Arianne and Shareef Abdur-Rahim have heard since losing him have kept his memory alive. And as in China, they often come from surprising places.
At Abdur-Rahim's South Florida Hall of Fame ceremony, Shareef thanked everyone who attended. In the corner of the building, he noticed three young men who didn't seem to know anyone else in the room: former South Florida players who had never played for his brother, but who received that relationship building for which Abdur-Rahim will be remembered.
“Everyone wants a long life,” said Shareef Abdur-Rahim. “You want longevity, but the goal is to be able to have an impact. He had an impact, an impact on people, on how he made people feel. There are people who live to be 100 years old and they're not able to do that.”
