Cal Sports Report

Report: Amir Abdur-Rahim Not a Serious Candidate at Cal

Abdur-Rahim was interviewed on Tuesday, but Jeff Schultz of The Athletic tweeted that the Bears have not made him a serious candidate

Jake Curtis

On Tuesday it was reported that Kennesaw State head coach Amir Abdur-Rahim interviewed for the vacant head coaching job at Cal, but on Wednesday it was reported by another source that he is not believed to be a serious candidate for the Bears job.

Jeff Schultz of The Athletic reported that Abdur-Rahim is not a serious candidate at Cal, although Abdur-Rahim is likely to be a target of other programs.

And who knows what will happen over next several days. It wouldn't be the first time that a person who was not considered a candidate turns out to be the person who is hired.

Former Cal assistant coach Billy Kennedy and former Golden Bears standout player Jaylen Brown both endorsed Abdur-Rahim as a strong candidate to be Cal's next head coach, to replace fired Mark Fox.

Abdur-Rahim is the brother of former Cal star Shareef Abdur-Rahim, and he led Kennesaw State to a 26-10 record and a berth in the NCAA tournament this season.  The Owls then nearly upset third-seeded Xavier in the first round of the NCAA tournamernt but fell just short.

There are several other names that are coming up as possible candiates, including Boise State head coach Leon Rice, Utah State head coach Ryan Odom and Utah Valley head coach Mark Madsen, the former Stanford standout, although it's unclear where the Cal search is headed and which people would be interested.

We advocated offering the job to Randy Bennett, the head coach at Saint Mary's.  It is assumed that he is entrenched at Saint Mary's and would not be interested to moving to Cal for a rebuilding challenge, but there is some sentiment that Bennett might be intertested.

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Cover photo of Amir Abdur-Rahim by Bob Donnan, USA TODAY

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Jake Curtis
JAKE CURTIS

Jake Curtis worked in the San Francisco Chronicle sports department for 27 years, covering virtually every sport, including numerous Final Fours, several college football national championship games, an NBA Finals, world championship boxing matches and a World Cup. He was a Cal beat writer for many of those years, and won awards for his feature stories.

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