Before his death, Malcolm Kerr had been a rising star in the world of Middle Eastern history. He and Ann had met in Beirut, in 1954, and they had four children together—Steve was the third. After Malcolm was killed, Ann told me, everyone in the family mourned the loss in a different way. “Steve knew his father loved basketball,” she said. Basketball was an important constant during Steve’s early years, as he grew up in Beirut, Cairo, California, and points in between. He and Malcolm played together often. “Malcolm was quite competitive by nature,” Ann said. “Steve gets it from his father.” As a freshman in high school, Steve attended Cairo American College, an outpost of liberal American education where expat kids mingled in a rarefied space of leafy tranquility within the sprawling metropolis. Steve played basketball there but yearned to return to California, to play at a higher level. His parents obliged him. “He was so eager to play that we decided we’ve got to let him go back home,” Ann told me. “He’s always been single-minded about basketball.”
