Coach finds new measure of wealth
He could tell you how he had Scottie Pippen over for dinner not so long ago. He could tell you about his college career with Virginia Tech, when the Hokies were more than a decent college basketball programme, playing in front of 15,000 people a few times a week. He could tell you about sitting out the 1984 US Olympic trials in Colorado Springs as Patrick Ewing and Jordan made a team that would go on to win gold in Los Angeles, while he watched on from the bleachers and cursed a foot injury that cost him his shot.
But Gerald Kennedy doesn’t want to tell you about any of that. Instead, he leans back in a chair upstairs in the National Basketball Arena in Tallaght, hoarse and sweaty from an animated hour spent coaching the U16 girls from Caritas College in Ballyfermot through a semi-final. It’s a very different type of glory to the one he grew up with but it’s one which has him every bit as emotional and excited as younger years spent flirting with the big time.
