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Brian Windhorst, ESPN Senior Writer
ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — Calling it a “terrible” and “demoralizing day for our country,” Team USA coach Steve Kerr tried to summarize the emotions of his team Sunday as it is halfway across the world representing their nation in the wake of an assassination attempt on former president Donald Trump.
“This is a time where we feel very proud to represent our country wearing USA on our chest, competing in the Olympics,” Kerr said. “We’ve talked to the players about how important it’s to show the best version of us as human beings to represent our country in a respectful, dignified manner. It makes you want to do that even more so, because this is really shameful for us to sit here and think about what happened and what’s going on in our country.”
Kerr, whose father Malcolm was assassinated in 1984 in Beirut, Lebanon, has a long history of criticizing gun violence.
“It’s such a demoralizing day for our country, and it’s yet another example of not only our political division, but also gun culture,” Kerr said. “A 20-year-old with an AR-15 trying to shoot the former president. It’s hard to process everything and it’s scary to think about where this goes because of the issues that already exist in the country. So this is a terrible day.
“Thank God Trump wasn’t hit, but it’s just so demoralizing in every which way.”
Early Sunday morning, the FBI identified the suspected gunman as 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks. In a statement, the FBI said “this remains an active and ongoing investigation.”
Players and coaches learned of the events in Butler, Pennsylvania, when they awoke to the news Sunday morning.
“It’s obviously very sad time in general. All the conversations around the election and the state of politics in our country, and then you have a situation like this, which just invokes a lot of emotions around things that we need to correct as a people,” Team USA star Stephen Curry said.
“Obviously gun control first and foremost, because the fact that that’s even possible for somebody to to have an attack like that. But just moreso you want to [see] positivity and hope. It sounds cheesy, but it’s real. That’s when our country’s at its best and it just adds another blemish to what’s going on. So sad is just the word.”
Team USA was addressed by U.S. Ambassador to the United Arab Emirates Martina Strong in a prescheduled event Sunday. The team will remain in the Middle East this week before playing Olympic preparation games against Australia on Monday and Serbia on Wednesday.
“Obviously what we’re doing is very trivial, just playing basketball, but we want to put our best selves out there to try to give people a glimpse of what our country can be about,” Kerr said. “And then you hear something like this and it’s just so demoralizing and obviously so sad.”