Steve Kerr's been beating the odds his whole life

"Steve, you are an idiot," it said, "and the ASU fans had it right. Beirut! Beirut! Beirut!"

Thousands of basketball fans and University of Arizona alumni know what the Palestine Liberation Organization and Beirut references are about.

Although Kerr has led a mostly charmed life — tight-knit family, good friends, stellar reputation, wealth, and, yes, an NBA championship ring for every finger of his magical shooting hand — it hasn't all been idyllic.

A big chunk of Kerr's identity was built on the pain of losing his father to murderous ideologues in Beirut on January 18, 1984.

Islamic terrorists assassinated Malcolm Kerr, then president of the American University of Beirut, as he stepped off an elevator on his way to his office.

Dr. Kerr, who was 53, was a highly regarded specialist on the Arab world, and had spent much of his life in the Middle East.

Ann Kerr once wrote of her husband, "His enthusiasm for taking the job [17 months before his death] was summed up by his statement, 'The only thing I'd rather do than watch Steve play basketball is be president of AUB.'"

Dr. Kerr's survivors included his wife and three other children besides third-born Steve, an 18-year-old UA freshman at the time.

Two nights after his dad's murder, Kerr played in Tucson against Arizona State University. What happened that evening would become sports legend in Arizona and beyond.

The baby-faced young man, who then looked as if he'd walked off the set of Hoosiers, wept openly (as did many others at McKale Center) during a moment of silence before the game.

Kerr, the team's sixth man, then came off the bench during the first half and promptly hit a long jump shot with the quick release and beautiful form for which he would become famous. (This was a few years before colleges adopted the 3-point rule, which would increase Kerr's value as a player exponentially.)

He hit five of his seven shots that night as Arizona beat the Sun Devils. It was the Wildcats' first Pac-10 Conference win under new coach Lute Olson.

As for the "ASU had it right" reference in the menacing e-mail, the writer was talking about a game in Tempe in February 1988, when Kerr was a fifth-year senior (he'd missed the prior season with a knee injury).

By then, Kerr and the Wildcats were the toast of college basketball, a month away from winning a spot in the NCAA's Final Four.

During pre-game warm-ups, a handful of ASU students hurled insults at Kerr, including "PLO! PLO!" about his father's murder, though that organization never was linked to the assassination.

Kerr's teammates tried to rush the stands to attack the fans, but cooler heads prevailed. Kerr says he'll always remember that a kindly ASU ball boy consoled him as he tried to gather himself on the bench.

What Kerr did after the opening tip that night foreshadowed what would make a believer of future teammate Michael Jordan, the greatest basketball player ever.

Kerr hit six straight three-point shots in the first half, some of them coming from way behind the line, then ran off the court with fists clenched and a look of grim determination etched on his face.

After Arizona completed its rout of the Sun Devils, all Kerr could muster was that the screaming students were "the scum of the Earth."

The Phoenix Suns have slowly come together since the rough patch that marked the start of Shaquille O'Neal's tenure, which was a dramatic sea change for the team and its fans.

An intense victory at home over San Antonio on a Sunday afternoon in early March, followed a few weeks ago by a thumping of the Spurs on the road, seemed to constitute a turning point for the team.

It seemed the larger-than-life big man had brought new spirit to the team and infused their arena with an excitement that had been waning inch by inch, before the Marion trade.

No one will soon forget Shaq's leap into the third row trying to save a ball against the Spurs during that March 9 home win.

The moment was an epiphany for thousands of fans, as if Shaq were saying, "If I can chase a ball into the crowd at my age and with my pedigree, what else can we do as a team?"

The Los Angeles Times wrote a few weeks ago, "Maybe the Shaquille O'Neal deal wasn't the worst trade in history, after all."

That much is true, even if the Suns lose yet another playoff series to the hated Spurs.

Phoenix made the Shaq deal, in large measure, to try to overcome its historic inadequacies against San Antonio. Those shortcomings have centered on the Suns' failure to stop All-Star Tim Duncan from dominating games.