T he call came months in advance, from a Spurs staffer passing along a proposition from the team’s head coach. When Cornel West made his next visit to Texas, would he like to join Gregg Popovich for a discussion with high school kids?

West did not need to be asked twice. Renowned as an intellectual but never as an athlete, he had not claimed a basketball hero since Nate Thurmond patrolled the lane for the San Francisco Warriors in the 1960s. But he knew Popovich’s name and his reputation, and he recognized an opportunity when he heard one.

That, West thought, is exactly what this was. For all of his accomplishments as a civil rights activist and a professor at Harvard, Princeton and Yale, he knew he would never be able to command teenagers’ attention like he would while sitting next to a coach with five NBA championships.

And on that morning in November when he met Popovich for the first time?

“As soon as I saw him, I hugged him and said, ‘You are my brother,’” West said. “‘We are on the same quest.’”

That quest, West insisted, is not political, although many presume it to be such. Instead, it is about what West called “decency and integrity,” and to ensure that kids in danger of being forgotten are reminded that they matter.

Popovich did not invite news crews or cameras to his afternoon-long session at Sam Houston High School six weeks ago. Aside from the teachers, students, their families and the Spurs, no one knew it was happening at all.

But for more than five hours at the Carver Community Cultural Center, Popovich, West and The Nation sports editor Dave Zirin spoke about what West called “instilling virtues and values in people’s hearts, minds and souls.”

The first two hours were for the high school kids only. The rest of the program was open to parents and Popovich’s players. Later that evening, many of the Spurs brought their wives to a dinner with Popovich and West. Retired All-Star Tim Duncan and his girlfriend joined the group, too.

Last week, Spurs guard Patty Mills brought up the experience unprompted as he raved about how Popovich fosters an environment in which players are reminded “there is a much bigger world with far more important things out there than just playing basketball.”

As impressed as the Sam Houston kids and NBA players were that day, however, few were more blown away than West. He is the man who studied theology, earned a Ph.D. from Princeton, made a career as a modern philosopher and published a host of books and essays about race, politics and culture.

And yet he had no problem at all explaining why people should listen to what a basketball coach has to say about societal issues, like when he made extended comments about being “sick to (his) stomach” following the presidential election.

“Brother Popovich has a moral and spiritual authority that’s rare in America,” West said. “It’s partly because he’s true to himself.

”He’s not concerned just about what’s being bought and sold. He’s concerned about what’s being lived and laughed and struggled for.”

On that day in November, West said, Popovich’s message resonated with the crowd of largely minority students in a way he had seldom seen. When one teenager asked if the Spurs would win another title, Popovich replied that he would prefer if his players “were going to make society better.”

West said he jumped out of his chair and said, “Let this sink in.” He is sure it did.

“The young people were on fire,” West said.

Popovich, of course, downplayed his role in all of this. After the fact, he praised the high-schoolers, and said, “We just wanted to be there for them so that they know we want to interact with them, and that a lot of people care.”

And more than a month later, when West raved about Popovich being an “exemplar of courage and integrity,” he laughed as he caught himself.

“He’d reject all of this being said about him,” West said. “He has a humility that is genuine.”

Also genuine, apparently, is Popovich’s interest in the future of the kids in the audience that day. The coach made it clear to West that he did not intend the interaction with the students to be limited to one afternoon. He said he wants to keep going back, to maintain relationships and to monitor the teenagers’ progress.

Popovich said he told the students “they don’t need to be as fearful or feel ‘less than,’ because we know who they are. We depend on them for the future.”

And hearing that, West could not have felt more vindicated that he accepted Popovich’s invitation.

“There was unbelievable affirmation of good,” West said. “It gives me a tremendous sense of hope.”

mfinger@express-news.net

Twitter: @mikefinger