Courtesy Chicago Sun Times

(February 27, 2009) The saddest day in the 43-year history of the Bulls concluded late Thursday night with the passing of team legend Johnny Kerr.

Kerr, 76, died at approximately 9:50 p.m. at his west suburban Riverside home surrounded by family after a year-long battle with prostate cancer. His death came hours after the announcement of the unexpected death of all-time Bulls point guard Norm Van Lier.

Kerr — the first head coach of the team from 1966-68 and an enduring presence as an executive, broadcaster and ambassador for all things Bulls — had been honored on Feb. 10 during halftime of a Bulls-Pistons game at the United Center. The moving tribute included remarks by a phalanx of Kerr-connected luminaries including Michael Jordan, Scottie Pippen and broadcaster Jim Durham. The ceremony culminated with a video tribute from President Barack Obama.

‘‘He was the world’s most wonderful brother and a godsend to basketball and the city of Chicago,’’ sister Joanie Kerr said late Thursday evening. ‘‘I was so proud of him, from the time we were little kids down on South May. I looked up and admired him, not just because he was 6-foot-9, but because he was such an outstanding man. He was a man who was raised without a father, who went out and made something great of himself and who brought so much joy and laughter to the lives of so many people. I am very sad right now, but I am so thankful that at least his suffering is over.’’

While newer generations of Bulls fans knew Kerr best for his on-air wit and ceaseless people skills, older Chicago basketball followers remember a gangly young man of Swedish-Scotch descent who came off the soccer fields of the South Side to lead Tilden Tech to a city basketball championship. He later starred at the University of Illinois, helping to lead the Illini to the Final Four. He then played 12 years in the NBA, almost all with the Syracuse Nationals (1954-65).

‘‘The entire Bulls organization is deeply saddened by the passing of Johnny ‘Red’ Kerr,’’ Bulls chairman Jerry Reinsdorf said. ‘‘Johnny spent his entire life around the great game of basketball, both here in Chicago, and throughout the entire NBA.

‘‘Those that were fortunate enough to have known Johnny were touched by both his tremendous compassion for people, and his life-long passion for the game of basketball. We will miss him greatly. Our sincere condolences, and our thoughts and prayers, go out to the entire Kerr family.’’

In the spring of 1966, he and Jerry Sloan were the two selectees of the Bulls from Baltimore in the an expansion draft to stock their fledgling roster. He immediately retired as a player and was signed as head coach by original Bulls managing partner Dick Klein. With an insti-cast including Sloan, Guy Rodgers, Bob Boozer and Don Kojis, Kerr led the Bulls to a 33-48 finish and a playoff appearance. That postseason cameo — a three-and-out vs. the St. Louis Hawks — remains the only time a first-year NBA team has made the playoffs.

More importantly, Kerr, assistant coach Al Bianchi and young business manager Jerry Colangelo relentlessly worked the streets, medias and sports corners of Chicago to allow the Bulls to establish a beachhead on the local sports landscape.

‘‘You can quite convincingly make an argument that without Red’s personality, the Bulls might never had made it in Chicago,’’ said Brian McIntyre, the NBA’s senior vice president of communications and a Chicago native. ‘‘That would have meant six Jordan-era championships someplace else with the Bulls just another failed asterisk in the NBA record books.’’

Kerr and wife Betsy — who passed away in October 2000 — were the parents of six children, one of whom — eldest son Jay — died at age 3 in 1960.

Matthew Kerr — Johnny’s father — died when he was 3 in 1935 of pneumonia while employed at the Chicago Stockyards.

Funeral arrangements are pending, although it is known Kerr will be bured alongside his wife and son in Chapel Hill Gardens West Cemetery in Oakbrook Terrace. He is survived by five children — Ed, Matt, Jim, Essie and Bill — and 10 grandchildren along with sister Joanie.

VAN LIER ALSO PASSES
The Comcast SportsNet staff suspected something was wrong when Norm Van Lier didn't show up Wednesday night to work the Bulls' halftime and postgame shows.

"Stormin' Norman" never missed a day of work.

"Normally he was there at least an hour and a half before I got there, always sitting in the same place," said Kendall Gill, one of his co-hosts. "When I came in and he wasn't there, I thought he was in makeup or had gone to the restroom. I asked around, 'Where's Norm?' Man, I knew something was seriously wrong."

Comcast colleagues left numerous messages, and when they still hadn't heard from Van Lier by Thursday morning, assignment desk manager Tim Folke went to his Near West Side apartment.

"I knocked on the door and I could hear the TV, but there was no answer," Folke said. "So I called 311, and the police and fire department came and eventually broke the door down and found him."

Van Lier, the fiercely competitive Bulls guard best known for teaming with Jerry Sloan in one of the NBA's toughest backcourts, was found unresponsive and pronounced dead at the scene. He was 61. The cause of death was not released.

Comcast colleague Mark Schanowski said Van Lier had "different health issues the last few years that sapped him of his energy," but a change in medication seemed to have perked him up.

"He was turning the corner health-wise, getting his energy back — he said it was the best he'd felt in a long time," Schanowski said.

News of his death was a shock to friends, colleagues and former teammates, who recalled Van Lier bringing the same work ethic and passion he had as a player to broadcasting.

"Everyone in the building does an impersonation of Norm saying, 'Forty-eight minutes of intensity,' " Schanowski said. "He believed that every moment you were wearing that Chicago Bulls uniform, you had to leave it all on the court. He couldn't accept some of today's privileged athletes who felt they could coast."

Schanowski remembered Van Lier challenging James Posey to a fight after the then- Miami Heat forward delivered a cheap shot to Bulls guard Kirk Hinrich during the 2006 playoffs.

"Norm was offended. He said, 'Posey, I'll meet you outside the locker room and kick your ass,' " Schanowski said. "Norm always felt he represented the Bulls, and if he saw something that was not right, he was going to call the guy out."

Longtime teammate Bob Love recalled a more infamous incident when Van Lier retaliated for a hard foul against one of the Bulls by challenging Portland's Sidney Wicks.

"He was a fighter who wasn't afraid of anybody," Love said. "Sidney was 6-9, 240. Norm was 6-1, 165. Norm picked up a chair and ran Wicks all around the court. He said, 'Butter, if I had hit him, I would've cut him down to my size.' "

NBA Senior Vice President Brian McIntyre was at that game and laughingly recalled Bulls coach Dick Motta saying, "I knew when Norm went for the chair, he wasn't going to sit on it."

Van Lier grew up in the Pittsburgh area and led his Midland High School team to the 1965 Pennsylvania state championship. He was recruited as a football player but ignored by the big-time basketball schools, so he attended St. Francis University in Loretto, Pa., where Bulls scout Jerry Krause spotted him.

The Bulls took Van Lier in the third round of the 1969 draft, the 34th pick overall, but traded him to Cincinnati for center Walt Wesley. In 1970-71, his second season, he led the NBA in assists with 10.1 per game.

"A year later, Wesley goes to Cleveland in the expansion draft and Van Lier becomes a significant player in Cincinnati, and I have to pick up the paper every day and see that," recalled Pat Williams, the Bulls' general manager at the time.

The Royals had drafted Nate Archibald in 1970, giving them two undersized guards. Needing a center, they sent Van Lier back to the Bulls for Jim Fox.

"And suddenly, we had the most ferocious guard line in the history of the NBA," Williams said. "Norm and Jerry Sloan were not the most talented guard line, but they led the league in charges, floor burns and diving into the stands for loose balls. Old-time basketball fans in Chicago will never forget the intensity and passion and fervor they brought every night."

Sloan always spoke fondly of his backcourt mate.

"It was a pleasure playing with Norm; he was a terrific competitor," he said in a November 2008 interview. "We practiced hard every day, and he was not afraid to tell a guy to practice hard — 'That's the way we do it here.'"

Love said Van Lier "never took a night off. He came to play every game . . . [and] as a one-on-one defender, he was the best. He would eat you up.

"We fed off of Norm. I would call him the 'Little Rat' because that basketball was like a piece of cheese for Norm."

After a final season with the Milwaukee Bucks in 1979, Van Lier retired as a three-time All-Star. He was named to the first or second all-defensive team eight times and had totals of 8,770 points and 5,217 assists.

Van Lier was a lover of rock 'n' roll, had a bit part in the movie "Barbershop" and played a youth-league coach in "Of Boys and Men," a Robert Townsend film shot in Chicago in 2006. In between his TV and radio duties, he coached the Rockford Lightning of the CBA and was an assistant at Mt. Carmel.

As a broadcaster, Van Lier was tough on the Bulls, often taking them to task for not playing with the proper heart and intensity.

"Norm looked at the Bulls as his children," Gill said. "He wanted to see them do well and it made him absolutely miserable when they didn't play well."

NBA Commissioner David Stern and Bulls Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf issued statements of condolence, Reinsdorf praising Van Lier as "one of the all-time greats ever to put on a Chicago Bulls uniform."

But Van Lier did not always feel appreciated by the Bulls. "One thing that bothered Norm, and he talked about it all the time, was that his number wasn't hanging up in the rafters," Gill said. "I wish the Bulls had done that before he passed on and I'm hoping they find it in their hearts to do it now."

Van Lier is survived by his wife Susan, daughters Hilary and Heidi and one granddaughter.