Amir Abdur-Rahim's legacy lives on 1 year after his sudden passing

NO MATTER WHERE he goes, former NBA All-Star Shareef Abdur-Rahim is reminded of his brother's impact.

Whether it's in their hometown of Marietta, Georgia, or as far as 8,000 miles away from where they grew up, it seems everyone has a story about how Amir Abdur-Rahim touched their lives.

"Some guy came up to me [in China]," Shareef Abdur-Rahim, president of the NBA's G League, told ESPN. "I didn't know him. He didn't know me. He was like, 'I knew your brother, man. He was the best.' How many times I've gotten that over this year is unbelievable."

Amir Abdur-Rahim was just 43 years old and a rising star in the college basketball coaching ranks when he died one year ago Friday during a medical procedure for an undisclosed illness.

In the 365 days since, the tributes have poured in from players, coaches and fans all across the globe. Abdur-Rahim was an accomplished coach. He took Kennesaw State from a 1-28 record in his first season in 2019 to the NCAA tournament in 2023. And in his only season at South Florida, he guided the Bulls to the American Conference's 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, a father, a brother to 12 -- 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 people rarely ask it with the intent to form a genuine connection the way her husband would.

"Most people just say, 'Hey, how are you doing? How's it going today?' and they're not really waiting for a response," she told ESPN. "They just want you to say, 'I'm good.' And everybody goes their separate ways. That's not him. He truly wanted to know the answer. He was truly invested in this answer and just wanted to make people feel seen and feel 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 at the school didn't matter -- he made an effort to build relationships with everyone he encountered. He bought Starbucks and donuts for students on campus. And after his introductory news conference in 2023, he called a meeting ... with the head of the student section.

Abdur-Rahim's relationship with the Bulls' football coach Alex Golesh was no different. Hired within months of each other, the two found commonalities not only in the way they wanted to coach, but the way they wanted to be great fathers.

Golesh -- who honored Abdur-Rahim with his patented phrase "this ain't the same South Florida, my brother" after upset wins over AP Top 25 teams Boise State and Florida to open this year -- said Abdur-Rahim helped him stay the course after a rough start to the 2024 season, offering him a game plan for the road ahead as they supported each other.

"It was just like those texts like, 'Man, this is what Year 1 is going to be, Year 2, Year 3, Year 4,'" Golesh told ESPN. "And then we just got closer and closer."

In 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 core to his legacy.

"He wanted to be better at everything he did," said Joi Williams, Abdur-Rahim's friend and chief of staff at South Florida. "He wanted to be the best and he wanted to make sure that 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 saying it back.' But what was really amazing, and I get emotional about it, is that when it got down to the end, you could see how much they were telling him, '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-coach of Murray State's women's basketball team that he would call her once he landed his next job. She didn't believe him until he offered her the role of chief of staff, a rare assignment for a woman in men's college basketball.

"We always talked about and joked about working together," Williams said. "I said, 'Yeah, a lot of you guys say that, but are you really going to hire a female?' And he was like, 'I'm telling you. I'm going to do it.'"

As much as he showed up for others, the strength of Abdur-Rahim's connections also meant he would disappear sometimes.

Ben Fletcher, his former assistant who succeeded him as interim head coach at South Florida, discovered that when Abdur-Rahim would suddenly leave around lunchtime when they were at Kennesaw State together, he'd usually end up at a mom-and-pop restaurant. He had a Rolodex of small-town spots and knew the names of their owners. He also knew the best item on each of their menus. For years, Fletcher hinted that he wanted to join him and felt like he'd hit the lottery when Abdur-Rahim finally agreed to take him to one of his favorite joints.

It was some of the best soul food Fletcher ever had.

"I'm like, 'Man, I've been here for two years and I'm just now learning where this place is?'" Fletcher said. "I told him, 'See, that's wrong. You wrong for that.'"

As focused as Abdur-Rahim was, he didn't take himself too seriously.

His young players at South Florida would often poke their coach to get a rise out of him. And it didn't take much. If they told him LeBron James was the greatest player of all time, the Michael Jordan fan would never let it slide.

"He would always bring up LeBron losing in the NBA Finals," said Kobe Knox, who played for Abdur-Rahim at South Florida. "And I would send him a little graphic about LeBron and his success and the next time I would see him at the facility, he'd be like, 'Man, why are you sending me that? I ain't paying attention to that.'"

Those moments helped Abdur-Rahim earn the locker room's adoration, but he could sell his players only on potential at first -- South Florida had never won a conference championship entering the 2023-24 season and hadn't reached the NCAA tournament in more than a decade.

Abdur-Rahim, however, didn't want his players to think about the past. He wanted them to believe in the future, so he brought a ladder and pair of scissors to practice one day. 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 net-cutting walkthrough.

"He absolutely believed it," Williams said. "Now, obviously, we were up in the hunt 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 get up on the ladder. We want to show you how the net is supposed to be cut.' And we actually did it. I mean everybody -- coaches, the players, all the support staff -- everybody that was going to get up on that ladder, we did it."

GOLESH WOULD OFTEN joke with Abdur-Rahim that basketball coaches had more time on their hands than football coaches -- jabs driven by jealousy and admiration.

"I said, 'Amir, I see you're taking your kids to school. I can't take my kids to school. I'm struggling. It's killing me. Matter of fact, my kid will see you drop your kids off,'" Golesh said. "My son, who is the same age as his daughter, is asking me, 'Dad, why can't you take me to school?' And so that's why I say [our relationship] is so much deeper than just, 'Are you playing zone or man?'"

The conversations, text messages and laughs abruptly stopped nearly a year ago. Many people inside Abdur-Rahim's circle did not know about his illness, and his optimistic reactions revealed little about his situation.

"I texted him like, 'Hey bro, everything good?'" Golesh said. "He would respond, 'Everything is great.' OK. Our first game, he wasn't there. So, I texted him. 'Amir, you good?' He texted me back. 'Man, I'm great.'"

His players received similar messages. Even as they knew he was struggling, Abdur-Rahim continued to coach and nudge them in the final weeks of his life, telling them what they needed to work on and the drive required to build on their previous season and earn an NCAA tournament bid.

"He was so full of life still, even though he was dealing with all of that, and he was still joking around," Knox said. "We had practice and he would sit on the sideline and he was still coaching us."

His death sent shock waves through South Florida and college basketball that are still rippling.

The Bulls' student section was renamed the "Amir Abdur-Rahim Student Section." The school inducted him into its Hall of Fame. And the American Conference made him honorary Coach of the Year -- an award he won in 2024 -- last season, too.

His faith, his love for others, his concern for his players, his wife said, were always the driving forces in his life and the reasons so many people have reached out since he passed.

"I want people to remember his legacy having to do with -- it's just something I tell the kids all the time -- integrity," she said. "And it sounds so cliché, but also just 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 like 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 received that relationship-building that Abdur-Rahim will be remembered for.

"Everybody wants a long life," Shareef Abdur-Rahim said. "You want longevity, but to be able to have an impact is the goal. He had an impact, an impact on people, how he made people feel. You have people that live 100 years and aren't able to do that."