Hundreds of family members, friends, and former co-workers said their final good-bye to Chicago Bulls legend Johnny “Red” Kerr on Thursday in Oakbrook Terrace.

Bulls’ announcer and Kerr’s longtime friend Neil Funk was one of the members of Bulls organization to speak at the funeral. Bulls General Manager John Paxson and radio analyst Bill Wennington also spoke.

“I loved this man,” Funk said. “We did fight, we did argue, and he did torment me, but I was blessed to have a friend like Johnny.”

Former Bulls’ play-by-play announcer Tom Dore said he will miss his golf and fishing buddy. Dore said, at times, it was like he and Kerr fought like “a married couple.”

“You argue, you solve it, and 10 minutes later you’re drinking a beer with him, “Dore said following the funeral. “That’s just who Johnny was.”

The broadcasting duo of Dore and Kerr – both men more than 6 feet 10 inches – spent 17 years covering Bulls’ basketball. The pair worked side by side from 1992-2008.

“Johnny was one of those rare people that made time for everybody, liked everybody, and loved every part of his life,” Dore said. “There is nobody quite like him.”

The tall, red-headed Kerr walked through the door of the Village Pub in North Riverside hundreds of times. He would take his seat at the corner of the bar closest to the door on the west side, enjoy a cold beverage, and talk about his Chicago White Sox and his alma mater, the University of Illinois.

Kerr died Feb. 26 from prostate cancer. But that didn’t stop Village Pub bartender Brian Hathaway from reserving Kerr’s seat and placing a drink in front of it in his honor Saturday night.

“Chicago lost a legend, and the Village Pub lost a friend,” Hathaway said.

Hathaway had served Kerr at the Village Pub for the past five years. The Bulls legend would come in occasionally for lunch, stop in for a drink at night, but would rarely miss a Saturday night to sing karaoke. 

Bar patron Homer Gonzales said Kerr would sing anything from the latest rock songs to country or go back in time to sing oldies, including “Mack the Knife.”

“He was a better announcer than he was a singer, but he enjoyed it so much,” he said.
“The first time I talked to him I talked to him about music for two hours,” said Todd Brown, another one of Kerr’s bar mates. “He always had a different song for karaoke.”

Hathaway last saw Kerr about a month ago, just days before the Chicago Bulls honored the former player in a half-time ceremony Feb. 10.  

The first Saturday night without Kerr was tough on the staff and friends at the pub.

Hathaway poured a drink and set it in front of Kerr’s chair, and no matter how busy they were that night, the seat remained empty. Recordings of Kerr’s singing were played to celebrate the life of the Chicago Bulls’ first head coach and announcer. 

Hathaway said customers would come up to Kerr for autographs and pictures, many of which are on the wall next to Kerr’s chair.

During the half-time ceremony honoring Kerr, President Barack Obama said in a taped message that Kerr was “the fan on the barstool next to us.”  

Gonzales, Brown, Hathaway and hundreds of others over the years who spent time at the Village Pub know what is was truly like to sit beside him.

“We’re going to miss him around here,” Gonzales said. “He treated us all like we knew him forever.”