(Photo Credit: Chris Youngblood/Instagram)
Chris Youngblood could likely go on for hours talking about the quotes from his former head coach Amir Abdur-Rahim that have stuck with him. One stands out, though.
“Be where your feet are.”
After Abdur-Rahim’s passing on Oct. 24, 2024, it’s difficult for Youngblood to act out the advice he was given in his first four college seasons. Youngblood’s former head coach was just 43 years old and had just taken the University of South Florida to the NIT in his first year as its head coach with Youngblood alongside him.
Youngblood has since moved on to Alabama, where he averages double figures for the nation’s No. 7 team. He hasn’t forgotten the coach that’s helped him get there, though.
“It’s kinda hard to go throughout anything, every day of my life and not think about him,” Youngblood told Southeastern 16. “He taught me so much that I will forever use the rest of my life. So really like every game, every weight room, every film session, [the] majority of my conversations I have like, ‘it don’t even make no sense, man.’ It’s multiple times, numerous times every day.”
Perhaps in some ways that’s productive for Youngblood, even if the grieving process hurts. The now-Alabama guard remembers what Abdur-Rahim instilled in him. He remembers how he lived and how he impacted people.
Thoughts like that inspire him, even if they’re difficult to work through sometimes.
“I just try to show it in how I live life,” Youngblood said of the way Abdur-Rahim impacted him. “Just how I live life, being a leader, serving my teammates, just being selfless and living a selfless life.”
Youngblood didn’t pick up those traits from nowhere. Throughout his four years under Abdur-Rahim at Kennesaw State and USF, he picked up on how his coach lived. He saw how he treated his two daughters and his wife. He saw how he immersed himself into any community that he was a part of.
“I don’t want our program to be separated from campus,” Abdur-Rahim once said. “We are a part of campus. We want to be visible. I think it’s good for the students to have a head basketball coach who is a human being.”
Abdur-Rahim didn’t appear to care whether it was his star player or a homeless man on the street. Youngblood always noticed him doing something for them.
“He always made sure he took care of the community,” Youngblood said. “One of these holidays he boxed [his leftovers] up and went to a shelter. I know Amir did stuff like that consistently because nobody knew about that. It’s just small stuff. Every time I was with him at a drive-thru he would pay for the person behind him.”
“He served somehow, some way every time he was out.”
Youngblood’s coach didn’t limit himself to serving when he was out and about, though. He was intent on serving his players, too. Youngblood, in particular, felt the effect of what Abdur-Rahim prided himself on.
The pair had a relationship that transcended what Youngblood–who could often call himself the best player on Abdur-Rahim’s team–did on the floor. His head coach often cared more about what he did off of it.
“He was definitely more than a coach,” Youngblood’s dad, Dupree, said. “He’d been to his home, knew his wife, knew his kids, knew his family, knew his brothers.”
“I never really saw him as a coach,” Youngblood said. “He’s like a just a leader of my life, you know. We never really talked much about basketball off the court. It was more so just focused on the man and the future husband and teammate, the friend, the boyfriend, the type of person I’ve become, the human I was becoming. So it’s pretty special.”
Perhaps the most special thing about Abdur-Rahim’s initial interactions with Youngblood was how he sold something that was the farthest thing from special to the talented wing from Sharpsburg, Georgia.
Abdur-Rahim recruited Youngblood as an assistant at Georgia before leaving for Kennesaw State in the middle of Youngblood’s high school career. The program that the former Georgia assistant left for was coming off of a 6-26 season and finished his first one with a 1-31 record.
There wasn’t much of a selling point for a guy with options like Youngblood–who wasn’t overly familiar with Kennesaw State’s campus, either–had. The then first-year head coach didn’t need one, though.
All he needed was his word.
“He could tell you that the world was gonna end tomorrow and he’ll have a way of convincing you that it would,” Youngblood’s father, Dupree, said. “You’ll get in the bunker and you’ll start preparing for the world ending tomorrow.”
Youngblood’s visit to Kennesaw State included him viewing what he and Abdur-Rahim agreed was one of the “worst” practices they’d ever seen. The then high school guard was the furthest thing from impressed as he exited the Owls’ practice floor and went upstairs to a suite to meet Abdur-Rahim after practice.
Upon his arrival in the room, the then first-year Kennesaw State head coach brought out a presentation and some of Youngblood’s AAU film. He pitched him on why Kennesaw State was a fit for him and why he could fit there.
Then he posed him a question.
“Why not? Why wouldn’t you come here?”
“I was thinking like ‘man, that’s a good question,’” Youngblood said.
At the time it was a question that the Georgia high schooler didn’t have the answer to. As a result, he committed to Abdur-Rahim and Kennesaw State on that visit.
There was just something about the guy that spoke to guys like Youngblood as well as his former teammates.
“Once he gets to talking it’s like church,” Youngblood said. “The way he says things you’re locked in. Talking about being where your feet are, being present. When he talks, his voice just makes you be present. I don’t know what it is about him when he starts talking.”
Abdur-Rahim’s talking throughout Youngblood’s recruitment quickly paid off. Youngblood started 21 games and averaged double figures as a freshman, then went for 13.9 points a night as a sophomore.
Something was missing, though. As it often had been at Kennesaw State, winning was missing.
Abdur-Rahim and Youngblood each decided to take on a program that had never had a winning season as a Division-I program. It had never even won 15 games prior to Abdur-Rahim’s arrival. It looked like a dead end program in every sense.
Until 2022-23.
For the first time since its move to Division-I in 2005, Kennesaw State became alive under Abdur-Rahim and Youngblood’s watch. Behind Youngblood’s 14.7 points a night, the Owls finished 26-9 and won the ASUN tournament and regular season for the first time in program history.
Perhaps bigger than the accomplishments was the culture change that occurred. People cared about Kennesaw State basketball in a way they never really had before.
“Kennesaw State, especially before I got there, it was nothing to go to,” Youngblood said, “next thing you know we were selling out pretty consistently.”
They were also dancing.
Abdur-Rahim and Youngblood took Kennesaw State to its first March Madness appearance in program history in their final season and pushed Xavier to the wire before falling 72-67 to Xavier in a game where Youngblood went for 14 points.
A few days after that loss, Abdur-Rahim told Kennesaw State’s roster that he planned on returning as its head coach the following season. Youngblood thought his coach was being too humble, though.
“Coach, you don’t understand,” Youngblood thought to himself as Abdur-Rahim addressed the team a week after the NCAA Tournament. “It’s too soon. It’s not that simple. They’re gonna throw the bank at you. They’re gonna give you something you can’t deny.”
Youngblood was right. He and his teammates believed their coach was a rising star in his profession that wasn’t going to be limited to Kennesaw State or even his next job. They believed he would’ve made it as far as he wanted to had he stayed alive.
The night after his speech to his team, Abdur-Rahim called what he said at the time was his “psychic” star player and told him the news that he was heading to South Florida and wanted to bring Youngblood as well as teammates Brandon Stroud and Kasen Jennings with him.
Youngblood had never been on campus at South Florida and didn’t even know what city it was in, but he was in because of his head coach.
“I was like, yeah, I’m coming,” he said.
The pair would go on to bring USF to the NIT with a 25-win season a year after it finished 14-18 and fired head coach Brian Gregory. At that point Youngblood had the highest stock of his career as he went for 15.3 points per game to propel USF to its first postseason play since it won the CBI in 2018-2019.
As a result, the senior guard felt it was time for him to make a jump up a level and entered the transfer portal. Youngblood’s father says that decision “hurt” Abdur-Rahim, although he ultimately came around to the idea that it was the right move for a former player that he cared for.
Abdur-Rahim continued to check up on Youngblood until his late-October passing. Youngblood was in practice at Alabama when the news came crashing down, which resulted in his dad having to relay the news of Abdur-Rahim’s passing to Youngblood. What happened to the 43-year-old coach hit Youngblood’s family like a train.
“Why him?” Youngblood’s father thought. “He’s just a great guy. Great dude. Why him? He had three great kids and a wonderful wife. Why him?”
Youngblood made the three-hour drive from Tuscaloosa to Atlanta to attend Abdur-Rahim’s funeral alongside his former Kennesaw State and USF teammates as well as Missouri coach Dennis Gates.
Every time Youngblood had been with his former teammates, Abdur-Rahim had been close by. This time was different, though.
“The position we all are in, we’re all kind of spread out, sadly,” Youngblood said. “But, when we did come [together] it was a weird feeling. It was like ‘wow, what are we doing all together?’ I was happy [we were together], but we really thought about it and [were like] ‘it’s October and we’re all together.’ Once we broke it down like that, it was like, man, like it’s crazy.’”
The former Kennesaw State and USF head coach meant something to those people. He meant enough for Youngblood to drive from Tuscaloosa to Atlanta and then to Huntsville the next day for an exhibition game that Alabama was playing against Memphis in an exhibition that night.
Youngblood wouldn’t do that for many people. Nobody would. You only do something like that for someone impactful, like really impactful.
“Coach Amir played a major role in his life,” Youngblood’s father said.
Abdur-Rahim and Youngblood will forever be tied together. Youngblood couldn’t have done what he did without Abdur-Rahim’s help and vice versa.
Bigger than the NCAA Tournament berths and the basketball games is a relationship that will have effects far beyond Abdur-Rahim’s lifetime. Youngblood will take what his former head coach taught him with him for the rest of his time on earth.
“The number one thing; being a server,” Youngblood said of the biggest thing he learned from Abdur-Rahim. “Being a leader and a captain your job is to serve. I’ll forever be serving, whether [its] my teammates where I end up after here, my kids, when I get married and have kids and just anything, just anything period.
“It’s always serving and also serving the community. That’s one thing I definitely pick up on.”