PLAYA VISTA – The office decorations were just a coincidence, but considering Doc Rivers’ history, it was pretty fitting.

A black-and-white picture of Doc’s father, Grady, in his Maywood (Ill.) Police uniform sits inches in front of a San Francisco 49er helmet.

The placement is unintentional.

But with tremendous focus placed on how athletes and teams will react to social injustices, primarily the use of deadly force by police, Rivers is ready to draw on his past to help guide his team.

In addition to sharing a roof with a police officer, Rivers also got to see the messiness racial injustice can cause as riots ripped through the high school a few blocks away from his home.

During the 1967-68 school year, Proviso East High School in Maywood, Ill., was a flash point for racial tension, with state troopers and local police being called upon to deal with the violence.

Rivers was just a child, 6 years old, but he watched from the front porch of his house.

“I witnessed where all the East students walked. I witnessed state police cars and national guard, where whites walked on one side and blacks on the other. You’d see a bottle throw here or there, (expletive) said both ways.”

He had no idea what was going on, why the people were angry. Later, his two idols taught him.

Both Muhammad Ali, the man whose pictures were on Rivers’ wall, and Grady, wanted social equality. It’s partly why Rivers respects current athletes, such as the San Francisco 49ers’ Colin Kaepernick, who are willing to protest.

“Listen, we need social change. If anyone wants to deny that, they just need to study the history of our country,” he told the Southern California News Group on Friday. “… I’ve said it 100 times. There’s no more American thing to do than to protest. It’s the most patriotic thing we can do. There are protests I like and protests I don’t like. It doesn’t matter. …Protests are meant to start conversation. The conversation, you hope, leads to acknowledgement, and the acknowledgement leads to action. We’re, right now, still in the conversation.”

He’ll talk to his team about social issues – he always does. They’ll discuss protests, he said. He doesn’t know what’s going to happen, if anything does.

“I hope we do it as a group. I know whenever you protest as one solid group, the protest has more teeth if you want to protest,” he said. “… I’m supporting our guys’ right to protest. I’m saying that up front. My hope is you believe it and do it for the right reasons and not just because it’s a hot topic on Instagram.

“I hope it’s in your heart and you believe in it. If it’s something in your heart, who am I to tell you not to stand up for what you think is morally right?”

Rivers might tell his team about the time he saw people separated by skin color right in front of his home. He might tell them about the time he was riding in his father’s police car when someone screamed out “Pig” only to need police help hours later.

What he won’t do, though, is tell them to be silent.

“My job is to educate them the best I can,” Rivers said. “Their job is to take the education and use it in the best way. They have to make individual decisions, but we’re hoping individual decisions turn into a team decision.”

Contact the writer: dwoike@scng.com