Who Is Steve Kerr's Wife? Everything You Need To Know About Margot Kerr
He married his college sweetheart.
Getty Most basketball fans know Steve Kerr as the championship coach for the Golden State Warriors. He has shepherded the team to five NBA finals and three wins. This on top of the four rings he earned as a player. Now his career on the Chicago Bulls is going to be highlighted as part of the hotly-anticipated ESPN docu-series The Last Dance. Release of the much-anticipated look at Michael Jordan's attempt to win the 1998 championship and 'repeat the threepeat' has been pushed up from June to April 19th to satisfy the binge-viewing needs of people stuck at home due to the coronavirus. There may not be current sports to watch but sports documentaries are the next best thing.
Kerr is an affable figure with an active Twitter presence and an outspoken nature. He was once ejected from a pre-season game and told the refs he didn't want to be there anyway.
When he got home that night, his wife Margot was there to ask if he wanted to be home more than he wanted to be at the game. That kind of banter is typical for the couple who has been together since they met in college in 1985.
Who is Steve Kerr's wife, Margot Kerr?
Read on for all the details.
They were set up by a friend.
Margot recalls that a teammate of Kerr's introduced the two of them when they were sophomores at the University of Arizona. Bruce Fraser set them up on a blind date. “I think he thought, ‘These two are nerdy, they’ll get along,’” Margot says of the matchmaking.
The Kerrs must still be appreciative of Fraser's efforts because he now works with Kerr at Golden State as an assistant coach.
Margot comes from an academic background.
When she jokes about being nerdy, she is referring to their parents who were college professors. Her mother, Karen Brennan, is a poet, author, and professor.
Kerr’s father has a more complicated and tragic story. Malcolm Kerr was an expert in the Middle East and the Arab world, a qualification that earned him the job of President of the American University of Beirut in Lebanon. He served in that role for 17 months before being assassinated by Islamic terrorists outside his office in 1984.
They bounced around before making their way to Chicago.
Kerr had short contracts with different NBA teams for a few years but never thought he would have a long career as a player. In 1993, he took a non-guaranteed contract with the Chicago Bulls, a move that the family thought would be their brush with greatness. “We were so excited to play with Michael Jordan, a championship team and we get there and Michael retires,” Margot said. “Then he was like, ‘Hey, maybe I can get a roster spot.’”
Margot likes to tease her husband.
Jordan didn't stay retired.
As fans know, Micahel Jordan didn't stay off the court for long. He returned to the Bulls in 1995 with hopes of getting a championship. By that time Kerr was a part of the team and he and Jordan had to work out their differences on the court. It wasn't pretty: they actually got into a fight. The story goes they were scrimmaging on opposing sides and Jordan was sick of Kerr shooting three-pointers. Instead of backing off, Kerr shot another one and Jordan came for him. The scuffle was quick but Kerr went home with a black eye that day.
“I don’t know what the hell I was thinking," Kerr says in The Last Dance. "It’s Michael Jordan, it’s the greatest player ever but I was pretty competitive and I kind of played with a chip on my shoulder. I had to, or I wouldn’t have made it.”
They have three kids together.
While they were moving from city to city as Kerr played on different teams, they had three kids together. Maddy Kerr played volleyball for Berkeley. Nick graduated from the University of San Diego and went on to the School of Public Health graduate program at his sister's alma mater. Son Matthew keeps himself out of the spotlight.
She credits his brains for his career.
Between his years as a player and as a winning coach, Kerr has eight championships to his name. It was an unlikely outcome for a player who never even expected to be drafted at the beginning of his career. “I can’t even believe all this,” Margot says about the path her husband's life has taken. “I don’t even know how all this happened; I really don’t. I have no idea. It is a lot of luck, but he’s really a smart guy.”
She still thinks her husband is hot.
Both Kerrs are avid social media users, though Margot keeps her tweets protected these days. In 2017, she made fans laugh when she commented on a pic of her husband wearing a retro-style suit to honor Al Attles. When Margot saw the photo she quipped that she "can't wait to hit that later."
The Last Dance will be released on April 19, 2020.
Rebekah Kuschmider has been writing about celebrities, pop culture, entertainment, and politics since 2010. She is the creator of the blog FeminXer and she is a cohost of the weekly podcast The More Perfect Union.