Auburn basketball coach Bruce Pearl offered up praise for the late Turning Point USA founder Charlie Kirk on Monday.
Kirk, who was assassinated at 31 while debating Utah college students last week, will have a lasting legacy and impact on everyone, Pearl told FNC's "Fox & Friends." The coach said that much of what Kirk openly discussed in his faith was something Pearl instilled in his basketball players.
"Charlie was leading a revival, equating it to the world of coaching and sports, our job in the locker room," Pearl outlined. "He was a teacher. He was a coach. He was an incredible optimist. He saw things in people that they did not see in themselves. He really believed in a better future through a love of God and through a love of the country and sacrifice and being a great neighbor and teaching so many of the principles we try to teach to our Auburn basketball team. And he is irreplaceable, but he is going to continue to live on through all of us and our work and our beliefs."
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Pearl later said he loved Kirk as a Jewish man because he "embraced the Judeo roots of his Christian faith."
"My job as a coach is to bring people together," he explained. "There is one God. He belongs to all of us, and Charlie taught that. So, I'm just sad. But, again, I am hopeful."
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