Next time, we’ll remember that. Post reporters called a dozen numbers and searched hard for Kerr this week. Even though Kerr’s around 6-foot-4 and nearly 250 pounds, the elusive young linebacker couldn’t be found. Parker, however, was located by phone.

“You just missed him,” says Parker. “He was here and we went out to eat a couple of times. But now he’s driving to his parents’ house in Virginia for Mother’s Day. From there, he’s going to Cleveland.”

Cleveland is the home of the Browns, the infant NFL team that signed Kerr to a free-agent contract shortly after the league’s draft on April 15-16.

Parker and Kerr watched that draft on ESPN and ESPN 2, just as they’ve done so many things together over the years. Both starred in football for a South team that made the 4A state playoffs in 1994. The duo took recruiting trips together that fall to places like Duke University.

Parker, son of Bob, the boys basketball coach for so many years at South, could catch the ball as well as anyone, but the larger schools weren’t convinced he was fast enough. He wound up signing on as a wideout for David Bennett at Catawba.

Kerr decided on East Carolina, partly because that was the first school that showed interest in him, partly because ECU was one of the few schools that didn’t seem nervous about the knee he blew out three games into his junior season.

Kerr’s position coach at South, Oron Earnhardt, told the Post and anyone else that would listen in those days that Kerr was the most complete linebacker he’d seen in 25 years. ECU took Earnhardt and Kerr’s head coach Larry Deal, a former Pirate himself, up on their glowing recommendations. The Pirates never regretted it for an instant.

Kerr and Parker graduated from South in the spring of ‘95 and, at least for a time, went separate ways.

Parker didn’t red-shirt, gradually worked his way into the Tribe lineup and enjoyed a productive career. He graduated on time last spring.

Kerr did red-shirt that first year, partly because of a broken finger. Then he blew out his good knee covering a kickoff a couple of seconds into the ‘96 season.

That didn’t stop him, of course. He fought back to become a second-team All-Conference USA linebacker in ‘97. The past two autumns he was all-conference first team. He graduated in December, leaving his name in the Pirate record book as the No. 4 tackler in school history. He even made it back to Rowan in time for he and Parker to usher in 2000 at a New Year’s Eve bash at DJ’s.

Kerr had reason to hope after a tremendous college career, which included being named to the East-West Shrine game, that he would be drafted. He knew he wouldn’t go on the first day (rounds 1-3), but it wouldn’t have shocked him at all had Mel Kiper Jr. mispronounced his name (it’s pronounced “Car” not “Cur”) and ESPN flashed his picture at some point in round five or six.

“I watched the draft with Jeff,” remembers Parker. “That wasn’t much fun to sit there for 15 hours, just waiting. Maybe Jeff was a little disappointed, but I know I took it a whole lot harder than he did.”

Parker says the phone rang throughout that second day. The 49ers, who did draft former West Rowan player John Milem on the fifth round, called. So did the Bengals. The Browns called a lot. So did a few others. Those teams were all saying, “Yeah, we know you’re still out there, and yeah, we’re still interested.”

As the draft wound down, Kerr and Parker had their eyes on the Browns’ final selection in the seventh round. That might be the one. But then the phone rang again, and the Browns were telling Kerr that they were trading that last pick to save a few bucks. The Browns, however, also insisted they still wanted him. They told Kerr if he went undrafted, they’d love to sign him as a free agent and bring him to camp with a chance to make good.

That’s basically how events went down in the aftermath of the draft, and that’s why Kerr is now heading to Ohio, far from Rowan County and far from a buddy who’s really more like a brother.

“I know and you know it was worries about his knees that kept Jeff from getting drafted,” says Parker, in a booming voice that sounds more like his dad’s every day. “But he feels real good about Cleveland. All he ever asked was to get his foot in the door somewhere.

“Cleveland’s told him they’re looking for a solid backup linebacker and he can be that. I mean, you should see him. He goes about 250 now (about 15 pounds heavier than he was when ECU played West Virginia in Charlotte to open the ‘99 season), and he’s put that weight on in all the right places.”

Parker, though, does have one complaint about Kerr, now that the free agent considers himself an adopted son of Cleveland.

“You know the Drew Carey Show, where the theme song is this thing called, ‘Cleveland Rocks.’ Well, Jeff goes around singing that song all day long. Or at least trying to sing it, anyway. When he sings ‘Cleveland Rocks,’ it’s to the tune of ‘Three Blind Mice.’”

But Kerr has always been better at carrying teams than carrying tunes. Chances are, if he gets a legitimate shot in Cleveland this summer, he’ll stick.