Jerome Kersey Overcoming The Odds
Softcover
Release date: 2021
As Cinderella stories go, Jerome Kersey’s is at the top of the list.
A native of rural Clarksville, Va., Kersey was an unknown from Longwood College in Farmville, Va., when he was drafted in the second round by the Trail Blazers. He made the team as a rookie in 1984-85 and began a 17-year NBA career that included 11 seasons with Portland. He was a starter and key cog on a Portland team that reached the NBA Finals in both 1990 and ’92 and won a championship ring with the San Antonio Spurs in ’99.
Portland coach Jack Ramsay liked Kersey’s potential but suggested to him that he play professionally in Europe to gain some seasoning before he’d be ready for the NBA. Kersey ignored the advice, made the Trail Blazers’ squad as a rookie and began a 17-year NBA career that included 11 seasons with the Blazers. He was a starter and key cog on a Portland team that reached the NBA Finals in both 1990 and ’92 and won a championship ring with the San Antonio Spurs in ’99.
Kersey’s story is one of perseverance and also of making a deep commitment to community and civic contributions. After his retirement as a player, he served many years as an ambassador to the Blazers and was working as director of alumni relations when he suffered a fatal pulmonary thromboembolism in 2015. He was 52.
There have been few players as popular with the Blazers’ fan base as Kersey during the franchise’s half-century of existence. Kersey was also extremely well thought-of by coaches and teammates, as reflected by the comments made in his biography.
Proceeds from the sales of the general edition of “Overcoming the Odds: How Jerome Kersey Blazed a Trail from Clarksville, Va., to the NBA” will go to both the Jerome Kersey Foundation in Portland and the Jerome Kersey ’84 men’s basketball scholarship at Longwood University in Farmville, Va.
